


Under This Shifted Sky, We'll Always Be Together

by pxseas



Series: Twenty Six [1]
Category: LOONA (Korea Band), NCT (Band)
Genre: (mostly), Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Blood and Gore, Everyone Is Gay, Family Dynamics, Family Fluff, Fluff, Forests, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Light Angst, M/M, Memories, Minor Character Death, Time Skips, Violence, polaroids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 21:02:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14756252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pxseas/pseuds/pxseas
Summary: Experts of Ten and Johnny's experiences of surviving the zombie apocalypse with their son, Jeno.





	Under This Shifted Sky, We'll Always Be Together

**Author's Note:**

> hi !!  
> this was a super fun (and long) project to work on ~  
> i hope you enjoy it !!

~°•. 21 / 04 / 2025 : 06:34am .•°~

 

It was the birds chirping outside of the Seo residence that woke Johnny up, ripping him from an unusually pleasant dream he was having. His eyes fluttered open, registering the dimly lit bedroom as time slowly passed. Johnny and Ten’s bedroom had a cozy feel to it, with the family photos adorned on the wall, next to his husband’s poster of some boy band that he knew nothing about. Potted plants (faux of course: the couple would never have remembered to water them) decorated the white desk and the small shelving unit. A string of polaroids from Johnny and his husband’s exepriences together were strung over their armoire in an adorable fashion.

With a grunt, Johnny stretched out his muscluar arms, and flopped them back on the bed. Ten’s warm body was still curled up next to him, yet it was turned away. He always did that, where they would fall asleep wrapped in each others embrace and then by dawn they were in completely different positions.

Johnny turned over to look at Ten. It seemed with every passing day that Johnny was appreciating Ten’s natural beauty even more; the way his lips were always slightly parted, his incredibly long eyelashes catching the dawn sunlight that was peeking into the room, the smile lines that Johnny partly took credit for. But it’s not just Johnny that brings happiness to Ten’s life. Anyone would be a fool to think that. Ten has a successful job as a doctor, good relations with his family and a happy home life.

But the thing that was the most important to Ten was their son, Jeno.

His third birthday was coming up soon, surely to be an emotional one for his parents, seeing as it was suggested by the doctors that he wouldn’t live longer than a week: especially with the entire effort of even getting him into the world in the first place. Surrogacy had surged in popularity, and with the advances in technology in the late 2010’s, it was all but possible for gay men to have a biological child. But for Ten and Johnny, it seemed impossible.

They had tried 4 times prior to Jeno’s birth. Each time wielded the same gruelling results, pushing Ten to the edge of breakdown, making Johnny feel as if he wasn’t worthy of living. But the day that the results came back positive, that gestation had began, was possibly the best day of their life. Ten’s sister, Tern, was pleased to donate her eggs, and they found a lovely surrogate mother who carried Jeno successfully.

It made for a funny story whenever Johnny and Tern met at family gatherings.

That being said, they weren’t the best parents by a long shot. 7 months into Jeno’s life, Ten dropped him on the cold kitchen tiles, putting him into concussion, and it took Johnny a good 3 weeks to learn how to make sure Jeno’s head and the car door wouldn’t accidentally collide. But the love that those 2 men shared between them for that child was immeasurable in words.

Ten’s shuffling underneath the covers and turning to face Johnny, his leg wrapping around the latters thigh, snatched him from his thoughts.

“Good morning,” Ten mumbled, looking at Johnny. The ’95 liner was always taken aback whenever he looked into Ten’s hazel eyes, shocked that someone so beautiful could exist.

“Hey babe,” Johnny purred back, moving a stray strand of hair out of Ten’s face. “Sleep okay?”

He nodded in conformation, moving closer to rest his head on Johnny’s toned chest. Ten could easily hear his heartbeat, possibly going a bit faster due to the proximity of his leg to Johnny’s navel. Smiling to himself, he moved his leg across, brushing against Johnny ever so slightly, and went to kiss his husband’s lower lip teasingly.

“Oh it’s that kind of morning, huh?” Johnny all but laughed, quickly turning over so he was above Ten, palms resting each side of the younger’s frame. Ten smirked, and sat up to greet Johnny’s mouth with his lips.

 

~°•. ?? / 02 / 2028 : ??:??am .•°~

 

Ten was running through the snow, sweat lining his forehead. His breathing was erratic, and his shirt was covered in fresh blood.

“How could something like this even happen… they can’t be gone…” he panted to himself, struggling to wade through the blizzard that had emerged earlier that day. His sweaty hand struggled to clutch his colt .45. Not that he would be able to use it: vision was all but non-existant in the forest he had found himself in.

Ten turned back, the only source of light being the flames that had engulfed the distant warehouse. A few screams were managing to pierce the otherwise silent night (besides the howling wind), and Ten had to hold back tears. Too many memories were breaking the flood barriers of Ten’s mind, threatening to overcome him as usual.

A grasp on Ten’s forearm snapped him back to reality.

In what had become a natural instinct, Ten whipped his arm to meet the figures head with his pistol. The limited light from the fire behind confirmed the figure was undead, and with this knowledge, Ten pulled the trigger. The man, who had pale skin, washed-over eyes and purple veins that were threatening to burst out of his face, fell back, crimson staining the snow that he landed on.

Ten moved on. He’d killed so many ‘dead’ people that if he were to make a list, the paper would be able to make a trip from Earth to the Moon and back again.

Those things had invaded the world as we know it. Slowly but surely, an infection had spread with little to no notice from populations of all major cities on Earth. But when the footage of wide-spread rioting in hospitals emerged, videos of corpses coming back to life and attacking whoever was nearby, it was impossible for the Government to deny what was right infront of their eyes. To this day, no one really knew the cause for it.

But one thing was for sure: It was the zombie apocalypse.

Well, that’s what the media claimed it was. Ten and Johnny much preffered the use of the word ‘the undead’, or ‘nasties’, which was what they called the walking corpses whilst Jeno was growing up. To soften the entire situation, almost.

As if the world turning to shit before their very eyes was something worthy of being softened.

 

~°•. 23 / 04 / 2025 : 01:12pm .•°~

 

“Appa, how much longer?” Jeno whined, barely audible from behind his bear-print medical mask, tugging on his father’s shirt. The crowd was slowly moving, with armed guards patrolling the sides to make sure no stragglers could escape.

Johnny took Jeno’s small hand into his huge palm, and squeezed it shut. “Not much longer, baby.” He looked down on him with sad eyes. “This is a sucky birthday. I’m sorry buddy,” Johnny comfoted Jeno by scruffing his hair up.

On each side of the pair were medical tents, seperated with fences that were topped with barbed wire, and road barricades that had been fashioned into creating lines to queue in. The crowd that they found themselves in were packed to maximum capacity, and were slowly moving up towards a white medical tent to be screened for the supposed illness.

Jeno made a gesture to move his medical mask. “Appa, it itches-“

“Don’t move it!” Johnny quickly placed his hand over Jeno’s keeping the mask in place. “Jeno, baby, if you move that mask, we won’t be allowed to stay together, and I’m not letting that happen,” he pleaded with his son.

The virus was announced to be airbourne yesterday morning on the news. Any sign of inhaling the surrounding air, especially in the midst of the large medical camp that had been quickly fashioned in Busan square, would for sure earn you a one way ticket to quarantine.

And Johnny had seen the clips on the news, further backed up with Ten showing him some videos from social media. The effects of the virus were not good: you turned into a blood curdling monster with no sense of humanity, leaping on whoever was near you. Johnny had nearly thrown up when Ten showed him a snapchat story of an old lady rippping out a womans throat using her bare teeth on the Seoul subway.

Johnny was now stood behind Jeno, hands grasping his child’s shoulders, half protecting and half leading him. They had reached the entrance of the medical tent.

“Next,” A cold voice sounded from within the tent. Johnny, whilst holding Jeno’s hand, strode inside.

The innards of the tent can only be described to smell as a mixture of raw meat, and clinical cleaning products. It made Johnny’s nose curl up. As he took a seat infront of the doctor, he removed his medical mask as instructed, and a swab was forcibly shoved into the back of Johnny’s throat, to be taken out within seconds. It left him feeling violated and unnerved whilst the professional shoved the swab inside some kind of machine that was foreign to the ’95 liner.

The machine blinked green.

“Please leave the tent and report to group C for briefing,” he said to Johnny, whilst an armed guard went to grab his shoulders and escort him from the medical tent.

“I’ll wait for my son,” Johnny said, forcibly freeing himself from the grasp of the soldier. Folding his arms, he watched in pity as Jeno had a swab shoved inside of his mouth, followed by the doctor shoving the sample within the machine.

But what shocked Johnny was the red light that flashed in warning from the machine.

“Guards,” the doctor said emotionlessly, gesturing towards the 3 year old sat in the chair. As soon as the men attempted to touch Jeno, Johnny had stepped infront of him.

“What the fuck are you talking about? Can you not see with your eyes? He’s clearly not one of them! He’s fucking fine. Let us go!” Johnny angrily yelled, emotions getting the better of him, with Jeno’s soft whimpers in the background.

A man dressed in camouflage threw Johnny to the ground, and seized Jeno by grabbing him under the armpits.

“Appa!” He screamed, clawing at the air to reach Johnny, struggling within the mans grasp to be free, to return to his dad. Johnny lurched forward, and grabbed one of the armed guard’s (who had previously attempted to restrain him) ankle, causing him to fall to the ground with a resultant thud. Picking up the gun that the guard had just dropped during the fall, Johnny aimed it at the man stood opposite him, who was holding his son.

“Give me my son-” Johnny turned the safety on the gun off with a resultant click, “-now.”

But it wasn’t a gunshot from either parties that brought the room to a standstill, it was the terrifying screams from beyond the camp, followed by the sounds of a warning siren.

 

~°•. 31 / 10 / 2016 : 11:54pm .•°~

 

“Okay but is that a talent or a party trick?” Ten flirtatiously teased, leaning forward and grasping the man’s bicep. He was overly muscular, and Ten was a mixture of being turned on and genuinley wanting to just hear more of the other’s voice. It was a weird mix; usually Ten just liked to ‘let loose’ at frat parties, finding the most attractive suitor, but the guy Ten had found himself currently speaking to was captivating.

“No, I’m telling you, I honestly have never missed a shot of beer pong in my life,” Johnny said, taking another sip from a red cup with a chuckle.

The halloween party was in full swing now, swathes of university students in a rainbow of costumes dancing to the trashy music that was blasting at full volume. The pair had found themselves in a quiet corridor, with Johnny easily towering over Ten, the older’s palm resting on the wall next to Ten’s head. The pair had been flirting all night, the presence of cheap booze making conversation a lot easier.

Ten didn’t know how to reply to Johnny’s ‘talent’. So he decided to take a risk instead.

“I want to kiss you now,” Ten slurred slightly, stroking Johnny’s free arm that wasn’t busy with leaning on the wall, enticingly close to Ten’s face.

Johnny, quick to please, closed the gap between them, pressing their lips together in a moment of lust. It was wet and sloppy, but between them, and whilst it may take a while for them to both realise, they knew this would develop into something more than a simple one night stand.

The pair seperated, both inhaling deeply.

“I thought you’d never fucking ask,” Johnny huskily whispered in Ten’s ear, his lower lip still shining with Ten’s saliva. The younger of the 2 wrapped his arms around Johnny’s waist, and pulled him closer, their hard-ons pressing into each other.

“Fuck that’s hot,” Johnny whispered again, moving back to look deep into Ten’s eyes, which were now a mess of lust, passion and a hint of desperation. “Do you want to like- uh…”

Ten smirked, catching Johnny’s drift immeaditley. He took Johnny’s hand in his, and they practically ran off in search of an empty bedroom in the frat house.

 

~°•. 23 / 04 / 2025 : 01:46pm .•°~

 

The gunshot pierced Johnny’s ear drums, as if he hadn’t already been battered with the sobbing of Jeno, who was clutching onto his back. The figure with the white eyes had stopped in her tracks as the bullet passed through her head, falling down infront of Johnny’s feet on the cold pavement of the Busan street. The city was in chaos, and the scene that was playing out before them was clear evidence of this. If you weren’t paying attention to the details, one would assume that it was a riot that was slowly growing out of hand. But, if you were paying attention, you would see the crazed looks that the ‘rioters’ had, the way they bit into their victims and moved onto the next, as if they were at an all-you-could-eat buffet. Those recently bitten would rise shortly after. It may take a few minutes, but they always did.

As Johnny backed away from the lifeless woman, he kept his gun aimed. He didn’t know if she’d just rise up again, and in this current situation, any uncertainity lead to death. They had figured this out a mere 30 minutes earlier when they were in the medical camp, when the guard holding Jeno had been shot in the stomach by a stray bullet from the chaos occuring behind them. After he collapsed, he rose up too, but this time he had changed. Gone were any signs of humanity that he once possed. No matter how many shots he took to the stomach, the chest, the legs, the guard wouldn’t fall. It was only the shot to the head that brought him back down.

After that, Johnny had managed to escape the camp with Jeno by his side (or rather, on his back), and in a desperate attempt to bring him and his baby son to safety, he’d ran into downtown Busan looking for an exit.

“Appa… you kill her?” Jeno whimpers in Johnnys ear, looking fearfully at the dead body lying before him. A flashing neon sign for a nail salon was lighting up her corpse in fluorescent on the dirty pavement floor.

“It… It was trying to kill us buddy… If it got to us, it would have been nasty… they’re nasties, Jeno,” The father responsed, skirting around the lifeless body and sprinting, Jeno lightly bobbing on his back.

Jeno was still trying to make sense of the sitaution, his poor little head struggling to make out the finer details of what was actually going on. And to an extent, so was Johnny.

“Holding on tight, Jeno-ie?” Johnny yelled back, still sprinting down the street. He jumped over yet another body who was lying on the floor and clutching his stomach.

Jeno mumbled back in confirmation, tightening his grasp that he had around Johnny’s neck, as if he was his father’s scarf.

A red car, definitley was an older model, crashed into a store-front further down the road from the pair. Apprehensively, Johnny slowed his pace down, aiming his gun at the car. Shards of glass from both the store window and the pane of the car littered the surrounding floor and the bonnet of the vehcile. Inside the automobile were 4 people, 3 of which were unconscious and bleeding heavily from their foreheads. The latter of which, a small-framed man with a head of red hair, looked very dizzy, and was struggling in undoing his seat belt.

“Appa, help them!” Jeno pleaded, wriggling irritably on Johnny’s back. He was pointing towards the car, urging for his Appa to move forward and be the super-tough hero that he thought he was. “Appa!” he further whined.

Johnny held his gun, looking inside of the car.

One… two… three…

One of the unconscious passengers began to twitch erratically, their shoulder moving in a ragged momvent, as if a jolt of energy had just been shocked into their system. Johnny clutched his pistol, and remained in his position of pointing it at the car. The passenger had noticed the tall man observing the scene by now, and his lips were parted in the formation of the words ‘HELP ME’.

Sixteen… seventeen… eighteen…

The man was crying now, tugging with his right arm on the seatbelt, but to no avail. His left arm seemed to be motionless, and the thought that he had broken it in the crash appeared to Johnny. But still, the American remained without movement, watching the scene unfold.

“Appa! Appa! He need help!” Jeno was crying now, shaking Johnny’s wide shoulders.

Twenty four… twenty five… twenty six…

The woman in the driving seat, who’s shoulder had been acting up previously, flinged into an upright position. Her eyes opened as though someone had flicked a switch inside of her. But instead of normal eyes, they were replaced with the same glossy white irises that Johnny had seen in the guard at the medical camp, and in the woman he had shot dead a mere 5 minutes ago. As the man in the passenger seat yelled for help, the re-awoken woman sunk her teeth in his neck, a blood curdling scream erupting from both within the car and from Jeno.

“Twenty six… twenty six…” Johnny whispered to himself, moving around the car, and continuing to run down the street with a hysterical Jeno screaming on his back.

 

~°•. 25 / 12 / 2023 : 11:10am .•°~

 

“Merry Christmas, Mom,” Johnny said, taking the older woman into his arms very carefully, as if she was made of crystal. She took him into her arms also, and rubbed his back lovingly.

Johnny moved back to his seat on the couch, next to Ten, who had a very energetic Jeno resting on his lap. The older wrapped his arm around Ten protectively, rubbing his arm. The family had travelled to Chicago for the christmas season to see Johnny’s family, and to introduce Jeno to them all.

“Who’s turn is it now to open their present!” Johnny’s father announced to the living room, which seemed to be packed to the brim full of family members. The old man was smiling, adorned in a festive woolen sweatshirt which had a design of two gingerbread men dancing happily infront of a similarly-decorated gingerbread house. A pile of neatly-wrapped gifts was situated in the centre, and wrapping paper from the recently opened gifts lay around the living room in small heaps.

“I think it’s… Jeno’s turn!” Johnny’s mom announced, turning dramtically to the 2 year old, giggling. The rest of the family awed at the cute smile that formed upon Jeno’s lips.

Jeno had always loved attention.

As the elderly lady passed a box decorated in blue wrapping paper, which had glistening snowflakes on it, to Jeno, Ten gently moved it onto his lap. Jeno pawed at the paper, unable to open it, but with a few helping rips from his parents, a teddy-bear holding a heart was unveiled from a baby blue box. Jeno laughed in delight, holding the teddy bear up and clutching it tight.

“What do you say baby?” Ten smiled, bouncing him on his lap ever so slightly. Jeno re-adjusted himself so he was facing his grandmother’s way.

“Thank you, Omma!” He cheerfully stated.

 

~°•. 11 / 11 / 2016 : 02:05pm .•°~

 

“No, he hasn’t called me yet,” Ten sighed, circling his nail on the wooden table of the starbucks he was sat at. Jaehyun, Ten’s best friend of the time, was sat opposite him. He had a head of brown hair, and exasperatingly huffed as he rushed his hands through it.

“Maybe you should just… give up. It was just a one night stand, Ten. He’s probably forgot about you now,” Jaehyun shrugged. He took a sip of the cappucinno he’d ordered, and scrunched his nose up at it. He then proceeded to slip out a pink sachet from the small container that was sat on their table, and empty it into his mug.

“No, he can’t of. It… it felt like something more than just a one night stand. And I know for a fact he feels the same,” Ten said with a sense of finality, sitting back in his chair and looking out the window. Heavy rain had began to pour down on the city.

“Whatever you say, I guess,” Jaehyun had given up his efforts in trying to make Ten swallow the reality of the situation, which was the fact that Johnny was probably just fucking around with Ten because he wore his heart on his sleeve and he was, according to the rumours, good in bed.

Ten turned from the window, back towards his friend, and buried his head in his hands. “I just miss him,” he muffled into his hands, to which Jaehyun groaned before comfortingly rubbed him on the back.

“I know dude, but I’m always here for you- wait,” Jaehyun removed his hand, and was staring intently out of the window at something. Or more like, at someone.

“What?” Ten said, lifting his head out of his hands, and turning to look out the window, following Jaehyun’s line of sight. He couldn’t help but let out a small gasp as he made eye contact with the soaking boy that was stood outside.

Johnny had pressed himself against the window, staring intensely at Ten, holding a sodden bouquet of flowers.

 

~°•. ?? / 09 / 2027 : 06:??pm .•°~

 

Jeno tenderly closed the door of the public bathroom, and instantly regretted it. The smell practically slapped the 5 year old in the face, but he was a brave boy. He’d seen and smelt a lot worse by this point.

The floor of the toilets were now a mould green, and faded blood stains adorned the edges of the walls. The ceiling, from what Jeno could see beneath the cobwebs, was a light yellow color. Cracked mirrors adorned the wall to the left of him, with some out-of-use sinks resting beneath them, and two machines in which the ’22 liner had never seen before were resting on the floor as well. On the machine read ‘Hand Dryer’, and Jeno was utterly confused as to how a machine like that could really be used to dry one’s hands.

As he walked further into the building, he made sure to gently open every cubicle with the tip of his pistol. His parents had taught him well: safety is an illusion until you’ve double checked everything there is to double check. That being said, Jeno was forced to close his eyes immeaditley upon seeing the state of one of the cubicles, almost retching. Eventually, he had reached the end cubicle.

With a loud creaking noise, the faint blue-coloured cubicle door slowly opened.

Nothing. There was nothing (or no one) in the cubicle, or the building, besides Jeno.

Jeno waddled into the final cubicle, the one he deemed was the cleanest (despite the apocalypse, he was still a neat freak: Johnny blamed Ten), and sat down on the toilet. He looked around the corners of the building, and noticed how a few of the panels on the ceiling were missing, allowing him to see the bright orange evening sky, which was lightly dusted with clouds.

After he had finished his business and pulled up his bottoms, an unfamilliar voice shocked him.

“I know you’re in here,” the deep and gruff voice sounded. Jeno may be young, but he knew for a fact it wasn’t either of his dad’s. His eyes widened in horror. As the years had progressed, the threat became less of the undead and more of other people.

“If you come out now, I won’t hurt you. I promise,” the man whispered. The loud crash of a cubicle door, the first of the row he assumed, startled Jeno, and almost caused him to fall off of his seat. Jeno was shaking now, and had wrapped his arms around his legs. Maybe, just maybe, if he wished him to go away, he would.

The sound of the second cubicle door being burst open dashed his hopes away.

“Give yourself up, and I promise I won’t kill you,”

Jeno let out a silent sob, and clutched his gun tighter than ever before. The third cubicle door had slammed open now. Only two more until the assailant would see the frail little boy hunched up on the toilet seat. But, as Jeno was desperately looking around for any kind of escape, he noticed it.

He noticed the gap between the fifth cubicle, the cubicle he was held hostage in for the time being, and the fourth cubicle, the one to the left of him. If he could somehow crawl through the gap, and hide on the toilet seat of the fourth cubicle after the man had checked it, surely he wouldn’t check twice, meaning Jeno would be able to remain undetected.

The bang of the door of the fourth cubicle announced it was time for action.

As quietly as possible, Jeno stook as close as he could to the wall, and crawled underneath the cubicle’s gap. As soon as his small trainers had touched the surface of the toilet seat of the adjacent cubicle, the bang of the fifth cubicle door sounded through the shelter.

“Aha!” The man had shouted pre-emptively, and Jeno could hear him growl in frustration when he was met with the absence of his victim. The room went silent for a while, and Jeno could swear he could hear his own heartbeat noisily thumping within his body.

All of a sudden, Jeno’s gaze turned to the right downwards, and was met with the look of a crazy bearded face looking up at him from beneath the gap. “It’s time to stop playing games, you little shit!” He yelled, grabbing Jeno’s ankle from beneath the gap the young child had just used to wriggle through. Jeno let out a loud scream, and kicked the man in the face, freeing his ankle. He quickly swung the door open (as fast as a panicked 5 year old could), and went to sprint out of the building.

“Not so fast,” the man had yelled, having recovered faster than Jeno had anticipated, grabbing the ’22 liner by the shoe, causing him to fall and smack his face on the unsanitary ground. Blood began to gush from his button nose, and as Jeno turned onto his back to face his assailant, who towered at an easy 6 foot, he wriggled free from his grasp again, and shuffled back.

In a panic as Jeno’s back made contact with the bathroom wall closest to the door, he moved his hands to grab onto his gun.

“Looking for something?” The man smirked, his eye twitching slightly. In his left hand, dangling ever so slightly so the evening sun glistened off of it, was his gun. In a swift motion, the man aimed it at the young boy.

The door to the building swung open.

“Jeno don’t forget to-“ Ten smiled, before looking down at Jeno, whos nose was now bleeding rapidly, and then looking at the foreign man who was aiming his gun at his pride and joy. Before Ten could put the dots together, a bullet pierced through his leg, causing him to collapse on the ground, letting out a yelp. He was breathing frantically on the dirty floor of the bathrooms, clutching his leg.

“Appa!” Jeno yelped, wriggling over to his right to cup his father’s face, ignoring the assailant, who was whimpering slightly. “Appa no!” He began to cry also, shaking Ten, who was closing his eyes and grunting as he shifted his leg.

“I-I didn’t mean to do that… I thought you were someone else…” The man who had just shot Ten reasoned, backing away slightly. Still clutching the gun, his eyes had widened, and a feeling of immeasurable guilt had washed over him. “Please, I really didn’t th-“

The door swung open again, but this time it was more agressively. In an instant, Johnny had shot the man in the head, his brains splattering against the back wall of the bathroom. Jeno and Ten were now sobbing, with a panicked Johnny, ignoring the corpse he had just shot, kneeling down next to them.

“Left leg… upper thigh… I think the bullet went-“ Ten let out a cry of pain as Johnny took his thigh into his hand, “-straight through, agh,”

As if he had done this a million times, Johnny received the medical kit from his backpack, and applied a fluid which Jeno had never seen before to Ten’s leg, before wrapping it in bandages. Ten bowed his head in thanks, but before Johnny could notice, his attention was back on Jeno.

“Baby are you okay?” He cupped Jeno’s small face, using his sleeve to dab away the blood that was now trickling down his chin. Jeno let out a small whimper, before leaping forward and clutching Johnny around the neck in fright. “Appa’s here, it’s okay baby, it’s okay…”, he whispered in Jeno’s ear, gently rubbing his back. “The bad man is gone.”

Jeno was looking his father dead in the eyes, having moved back from his embrace. His eyes were a dark brown, so brown they were almost black. Whilst Johnny’s face would often show little to no emotion, both Ten and Jeno had learnt that all of Johnny’s deepest emotions lay in his eyes. And right now, Jeno could read that Johnny was the most scared out of the 3 of them. Ten had seemingly recovered instantly, it wasn’t his first gunshot wound and it definitley wouldn’t be his last, but Johnny could tell he was still in pain, but putting on his brave face for Jeno’s sake. It was the least he could do.

“H-He tried t-t-to.. kill me..” Jeno stuttered, still staring into his father’s eyes.

“I’ll never let that happen,” Johnny resounded, taking Jeno into another bear hug.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

 

~°•. 23 / 04 / 2025 : 12:58pm .•°~

 

Ten’s phone blinked with the notification of a new message. The sender was titled ‘Hubby’, and followed by a string of love heart emojis. Almost dropping the phone from the hospital balcony Ten was standing on, he grabbed his phone in a rush, and swiped to open the message.

“just arrived at the camp w/ J, they’re going to take my phone I think so wont be able to talk :(((”  
“stay safe love you xxx”

Ten let out a sigh of relief that Johnny and Jeno had reached the medical camp. They would be safe there in the hands of the army, away from those monsters he’d heard about.

Ten was certain.

The door behind Ten slammed open, and stood there was Ten’s colleague, who went by the name of ‘Kun’. His dark black hair was in stark contrast to the white lab coat he was wearing, which had some light blood stains on them.

“Your breaks over, Ten. More and more cases are coming in, we really need your help, please,” Kun frantically said, before rushing from the staff-room balcony back into the hospital corridor. Ten, letting out a sigh, put his phone back into his pocket, and tightened his medical mask that he’d been assigned.

As Ten left the serenity of the staff-room, the juxtaposition of the adjacent corridor was shocking. Panicked Doctors were rushing everywhere he looked, wielding stretchers with unconscious people on. Every now and then, a body would begin seizuring whilst being escorted through the hospital.

The ’96 liner rushed down the corridor, and into his assigned patient’s room. The woman, who was 25 judging by her record, was lying on the bed, breathing heavily. Ten walked over, laying the clipboard he had just picked up back down on the shelf, and leaned over her. She was wearing a waitress uniform, and the tag that said ‘Hello, my name is Heejin!’ was coated in dried blood.

As Ten entered, she opened her eyes, and looked at Ten in fear as he circled her bed. When the doctor had eventually sat down in a chair, Heejin began to talk to him.

“D-Doctor?” She feebly said, sitting up slightly, grunting in pain as she did so. Ten looked at her instantly, and put his hands on her shoulders, resting her back.

“Yes?”

“Am I going to… die?” She whimpered before another violent coughing fit over took her. Ten sighed, and looked down. Should he lie? Or should he just be honest with her? The situation of her health was not looking good.

“Not if I can help it,” Ten sounded. He then took her arm, which had since been bandaged, and took it into his hands. “Could you please recall what happened?” he asked, having forgotten. He’d seen too many patients die this morning, too many heart wrenching scenarios over taking his mind.

Heejin gulped slightly. “I was working my usual shift this morning at the diner. This man, he stumbled in, and… I don’t know. He looked really ill, but he was still capable of speech. All he said was ‘They’re coming’, over and over again. I guided him outside, and sat down with him on the pavement whilst waiting for an ambulance. But he didn’t last long. A few minutes later he…” the woman began to choke up, before continuing her story, “…he died infront of me. Right there. I checked his pulse and everything. But, a few seconds later, he, like… it’s hard to describe. He began moving? His limbs were moving all erratically. It was incredibly confusing, because he just died. But, after some more seconds had passed, I’d wager around… half a minute? His eyes opened. They were completely washed out, like something out of a horror film. I was so scared, I could do nothing but scream whilst he grabbed my forearm and…” Heejin choked up again “…bit me. My colleagues heard the commotion from inside and they managed to render him unconscious, and that’s around when I began to feel faint. By the time the ambulance arrived, they had to take me instead.”

Ten was listening intently to her story. “Well-“

Heejin sat up, screaming, and clutching her good hand on her chest. Her heart monitor was going crazy, the green line going up and down on the monitor, and her breathing had rapidly shifted. As Ten tried to get her to calm down, she was screaming even more, yelling about a fierce pain in her chest. This lasted for around a minute, before she collapsed back on the bed with a thud, and her heart monitor stopped.

Ten gently put his fingers on her neck. There was no trace of pulse.

“Time of death…” Ten checked the clock on the wall. It was 01:12pm. He wrote this down on the sheet, and said a small prayer in Thai for the young girl he had just witnessed die. The sight was all too common for Ten today. But, whilst Ten was putting the paper back into it’s place on the front of her bed, something unusual was happening.

Her legs were kicking, and her head was moving around erratically. Just like the man in her story. Ten slowly backed away from the bed, and towards the door, his eyes wide in shock. As he clicked open the door, her seizure stopped.

“Oh god-“

Heejin sat upright instantly, and cracked her neck in Ten’s direction, her eyes opening to reveal washed out eyes. She growled, and struggled in getting out of bed, dragging herself out of the sheets and onto the floor. With a yelp, Ten closed the door on her, and turned back to look at the, now empty, hospital corridor.

Was this in Ten’s imagination? Because he could swear that the corridor he was standing in not 10 minutes ago was full of life and panic.

But Ten was the only one standing in the corridor at the moment, fresh blood staining one of the walls at the end, and overturned stretchers littering the sides.

 

~°•. 05 / 05 / 2025 : 11:03am .•°~

 

“Johnny, I don’t trust this,” Ten said from the backseat, which was currently cramped with 4 people in total; Ten on one end, Jeno on Ten’s lap, Jungwoo cramped into the middle seat and Doyoung on the other end. Lucas sat in the front seat, gaining priority due to his injured leg, and with Johnny in the driver’s seat. On their car ride further north, they had seen a road sign with the words ‘SAFETY’ spray painted in white, and an arrowing pointing to the right, down an unmarked road.

It had come to a majority vote in the car to follow the sign, with Johnny, Doyoung and Lucas voting to follow the direction, whilst Jungwoo and Ten wanted to continue on their own way. Those who wanted to check out the safety area brought up the issue of fuel, and how they most likely wouldn’t be able to continue on the same route for much longer anyway.

And what harm could happen anyway?

“It’ll be okay babe,” Johnny said from the backseat, slowing the car down over the rough terrain of the dirt road. The car began to jolt slightly, and Jeno clung to Ten’s sleeve.

“Appa, am scared,” Jeno whispered, snuggling further into Ten’s jacket, to which Ten wrapped his arms tighter around him.

“Don’t be scared, kid. You have all of us to protect you,” Doyoung winked to Jeno, easing the younger’s nerves slightly.

“Take it from me Jeno! We’re all really like… strong! And powerful!” Lucas turned around in his seat, smiling brightly at Jeno. “And so are you!”

Jeno smiled at this; he loved to feel involved, especially when he was told that he was just as strong as the adults that surrounded him.

“I see something in the distance,” Jungwoo noted, to which the adults all leaned to look through the front window. Jeno simply sat on Ten’s lap still, not really worried anymore.

“There are definitley people there,” Johnny said.

“Yeah, and like, tents. More cars, too,” Lucas said this time.

The car came to a stop, to which Johnny, Lucas and Doyoung stepped out of the car. Ten and Jungwoo remained inside of the car, and watched as the 3 men walked forward to greet the people. Instantly, guns were raised, but the 3 men raised their arms in surrender.

A tense breath of relief was released when their guns were eventually lowered, Johnny pointing to the car, moving his hands in an explanatory matter.

“It looks hopeful,” Jungwoo said, smiling. “Maybe we’ll be able to stay here for a while,”

“I hope so,” Ten murmured, but anxiety was still in his voice. He clutched onto Jeno tighter in a protective manner as he watched the exchange take place. Eventually, both Johnny and Doyoung waved over at the car for Ten, Jeno and Jungwoo to join them. They walked over awkwardly, Jeno holding Ten’s hand, and bowed in respect to the men in greeting before standing beside the other members of their group.

“So, Ten, this is Taeil, he’s the guy who runs this place,” Johnny said, gesturing towards Taeil.

“Hello Taeil,” Ten bowed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he smiled.

“Oh trust me, the pleasure is ours! We had been thinking we were the last ones remaining for such a long time, so we’re very grateful to have newcomers to our small community here,” Taeil smiled.

After Jungwoo introduced himself to Taeil, Johnny turned to the pair. “We’ve made a deal with Taeil here. If we contribute to the upkeep of the camp, we are allowed to stay for as long as we want. Is this okay, as a group?” Johnny asks, turning to the other 5. After a collection of nods, Johnny continued to speak. “Perfect.”

The group began to move forward to the camp, Jeno running next to Lucas, leaving Ten and Johnny to have a small moment of privacy.

“Damn, I forgot how much you like to take control,” Ten laughed under a whisper, to which Johnny’s eyes widened in surprise at the remark in such a serious situation.

“Stop, not infront of the kids,” Johnny winked greasily.

“Kids?”

“Ah, I’m kind of counting Lucas as one as well. He’s so young, reminds me of… well, me,” Johnny laughs slightly, to which Ten smiles.

Eventually, the group enter the small campsite, to which there are several other families sat around by the tents, on small lawn chairs. There’s a pleasant atmosphere surrounding the area, and some kids are running around. General chatter comes to a halt with the new arrivals, and after Taeil introduces them to everyone whilst stood on a makeshift pedestal (it was a crate), the pleasant atmosphere returns.

Taeil leads the groups to 2 tents that had been prepared for them; one for the Seo family, and one for Jungwoo, Doyoung and Lucas. They weren’t particularly spacious, but the group couldn’t remember the last time they had slept in comfort or safety, and so the tents were accepted in good heart.

After Jonnny and Ten had sorted out their belongings in the tent, they moved to the ‘common area’ at the centre of the camp site.

“Oh, you must be the new guys?” Someone said behind the family. Ten, Johnny and Jeno all turned to look at him.

The man stood with a mess of brown hair, whilst wearing a black sweatshirt and black jeans, with what looked like professional walking boots adoring his feet. His wide frame had a sense of authority attached to him, but his healing smile made the family unit feel comfortable and at home. Next to him stood a slender man with blonde hair with pink highlighted tips, holding the brown haired man’s hand. The blonde haired man was wearing a striped top and black ripped jeans, yet the rips didn’t look like they were on purpose: they looked like they had been made in some kind of conflict prior to the current day.

“Ah, yes. I’m Johnny, and this is Ten and our son, Jeno.”

“Ah, I’m Yuta!” The brown haired man said, smiling. “This is my husband, Sicheng,” to which Sicheng gave them a wide smile but didn’t speak. “He can’t speak Korean very well, so don’t mind him if he doesn’t speak much. Oh, and we have two kids, Chenle and Renjun who are 5 and 7, but they’re off playing somewhere!”

“That’s nice, isn’t it Jeno! Some kids your age who you can play with!” Ten smiled, kneeling down to make eye contact with Jeno. He tentatively nodded and gave a weak smile. Jeno never really liked other kids around his age, and always preffered to hang out with older people.

“It’s uh… very good to meet you!” Sicheng smiled, nodding his head in a way that made his bright pink tipped hair bob slightly on his head. Johnny noticed the way that Yuta watched Sicheng with absolute awe, seeming to hang onto every syllable Sicheng spoke as though it was hise lifeline.

“I’m sure we’ll see you around,” Johnny said in return. The men said their goodbyes, and the family began to make their way further into the camp.

 

~°•. 23 / 04 / 2025 : 02:31pm .•°~

 

Johnny shut the car door shut with a slam, and Jeno wriggled off of his lap and into the passenger seat. The click of the locks sounded from the car doors, and Johnny looked to his son in aprehension.

“Are you okay Jeno-ie?” he panted, still out of breath from the running he had just done. Jeno whimpered slightly, before nodding. His stripey blue shirt now had blood stains on it, and from what Johnny could see, he had a small cut on his forearm. “We’re going home now, it’ll be okay,”

“But what about Appa!” Jeno resounded immeaditley, looking at Johnny with pleading eyes. Johnny pursed his lips, and closed his eyes. Ten. He was working at the hospital today, and it didn’t take long for Johnny to realise how dangerous this was. If he still had his phone, he'd call him to check up, but alas, they took it away at the medical camp. Johnny, left in the dark about Ten’s whereabouts and safety, desperatley wanted to drive to the hospital to find him himself, but he wasn’t about to risk it with Jeno still in the car.

“He’ll be fine… your Appa is smart and strong!” Johnny says through gritted teeth, putting on his best fake smile for Jeno and forming a fist in the ‘hwaiting’ pose. Jeno let out a small sigh of relief, but Johnny’s chest was still clenched with stress.

A slam on the car window from a pale hand removed the pair from their thoughts, before Johnny slammed his foot on the accelerator, leaving the undead body in the dust. Johnny had found this car deserted with both doors left open in a small parking lot in Busan, and despite the bloodstains on the bonnet of the car, it was still in pretty good condition.

He didn’t want to know where it’s original owners were now.

Johnny made a left turn down a street. The buildings on either side were a mix of commercial and apartment buildings, and besides the occasional crashed car, it looked safe.

Jeno sat quietly in the passenger seat, with his hands in his lap. He couldn’t see through the window yet as he wasn’t tall enough, and there wasn’t a booster seat for him to sit on in the car. He let out a small sniffle, and was scratching out some dried blood from the side of his tiny nail.

“How are you holding up buddy?” Johnny asked, not taking his eyes off of the road. It was still a long way home, and the conditions on the roads weren’t making anything easier.

“You kill those people Appa… will you be in trouble?”

Johnny let out a deep sigh. “They were trying to hurt us baby. You know what happens right? If they get you?”

Jeno shook his head.

“If they bite you then… you become one of… one of them. I think,”

“Uwaa?” Jeno widened his eyes in shock, and looked to his father.

“Don’t worry, Buddy. That will never happen to you. I won’t let it happen.”

 

~°•. 02 / 07 / 2017 : 04:12pm .•°~

 

The afternoon sun was beating down on Ten, as he lay on his back in the grass. A song from some girl group he added to his playlist recently was blaring through an earphone that was loosely hanging in his left ear. As he looked up at the cloudless sky, his earphone shifted out of his ear, and landed on the grass.

“Johnny, stop mov-“

Ten turned onto his stomach, and looked at his boyfriend of 7 months, who was lying down opposite him. In the position they were just in, their heads were next to each other but facing the other direction. Ten’s phone had some earphones which the couple were using to listen to the same song, whilst resting in a comfortable silence in the hot weather.

Johnny’s eyes had fluttered shut, and his chest was rising and falling at a regular pace. Ten supressed a laugh when he realised Johnny was sleeping. If Ten knew one thing about Johnny, It was that he had trouble sleeping. He wouldn’t be able to sleep until he was absolutely comfortable, or until his mind was at rest. The first few times Johnny had stayed at Ten’s apartment for the night, he had trouble sleeping because he was still nervous about the whole situation, but he’d mostly gotten over it by now.

If anything, Johnny falling asleep next to Ten in a random field was a compliment to the latter. Before Ten’s next move, he took his camera out of his bag, and snapped a picture of his still sleeping boyfriend. After the film developed, he placed it into his bag, and placed his hands onto Johnny’s body.

“Hey!” Ten shook his wide framed shoulders whilst laughing, to which Johnny sat up instantly, and looked Ten in the eyes. He let out a small sigh of relief, but Ten wasn’t finished yet. “You fell asleep! What a lousy date,” Ten pouted cutely, and turned away from Johnny dramatically.

Johnny gasped in shock, and grabbed Ten around the waist from behind. He began to move his hands to Ten’s ribs and gripped onto them tightly, causing the younger of the two to shriek in laughter. Johnny continued to tickle him, until Ten was lying down beside him, a sheen of sweat covering his forehead from laughing too much.

“Uwaa Johnny! What was that for,” Ten giggled, trying to control his breathing.

Johnny looked down at him with annoyed eyes, but the couple both knew it was fake. “For playing that stupid Twice song!”, to which Ten began laughing even more.

“I like it! It’s catchy!”

Ten began to copy the famous girl group’s dance move, by putting his thumbs together and pointing his fingers downward, forming a ‘TT’ logo beneath his eyes, and put on a cute pout. Johnny let out a scoff, and turned away, cringing.

Ten stopped, and gently touch Johnny’s arm. “Did I upset you?” He said with a more soft tone, concerned for his boyfriend.

“Only because you did it badly!” Johnny retorted back, putting his own unique twist on the ‘TT’ sign, causing the pair to collapse next to each other on the grass of the field laughing, their legs intertwining as if it were their natural places.

 

~°•. ?? / 05 / 2026 : 01:5?pm .•°~

 

Life was good.

Wait, that’s a stretch. It wasn’t good by a long shot.

But it was definitley better than it had been from the previous year. Johnny and Ten reckoned that it had been around a year since the apocalypse started, but how were they meant to know?

Sat on the gymnasium floor, Jisung and Jeno sat opposite each other. Jisung was 16 years old, and thanks to Ten’s medical attention when the family arrived at the highschool turned survivor camp (around) 4 months ago, Jisung was relieved of his injuries, and was in better health than ever. The boy had blonde hair, and was suprisingly tall despite his young age, his height allowing him to come into eye contact with Johnny. Jeno was only 4 years old, and Ten always thought it was cute whenever he saw the pair of boys together, with Jisung towering above Jeno like a monolith.

Ten and Johnny had excused themselves from the gymnasium with Haseul, Chuu and Jinsoul, leaving just Hyunjin, Olivia and Kim Lip, who were mulling about the hall, talking about plans on rennovating the walls they had created around the building using scrap metal from cars around the town. Since Johnny was a mechanic prior to the end of the world, he made use of his skills in tearing apart cars as easily as possible, knowing which nuts and bolts to squeeze out to allow the car to fall apart on it’s own will.

Meanwhile, the 2 boys sat on the squeaky gymnasium floor. There was a board game sat beside the pair, but neither were paying attention to it; the game was far too confusing when they had tried to play it, and whilst the idea was a good one at the time when Jinsoul was rummaging through a toy store on a supply run, it was drenched, making the board soggy, and too many pieces were missing.

Instead, Jisung had taken to teaching Jeno to write. Jeno wasn’t illiterate by any means; he could speak the language with ease, and knew how to write basic phrases. But Jisung deemed this wasn’t good enough, and had taken to getting his notepad from his bag, along with a pencil, and teaching Jeno some more grammar.

“Uwaa… this is boring,” Jeno whined, crossing his arms.

“You need to know this, Jeno,” Jisung whined back. “It’s important.”

“Nuh uh!”

“Umm.. yeah it is.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

Jeno pouted, but a smile creeped out after a few seconds.

Just as Jisung was about to respond, the doors to the gymnasium burst open.

“Well well well… what do we have here?” A sinister voice sounded. Jeno turned to look at the slim man, standing imposingly in his leather studded jacket. His bright pink hair was ridiculous in comparison to his outfit, and the pistol in his hand.

The last thing Jeno noticed about him was rushed out his head as a hand gripped him from behind, and wrapped rope around his face, looping into his mouth.

 

~°•. 03 / 05 / 2025 : 05:19am .•°~

 

Johnny sat in the driving seat of the same car he’d found in Busan. It was in worse condition now, but it was still working, and thanks to a recently topped up tank of fuel, a rarity in this day and age, it was driving along smoothly. The stretch of road he was driving along at the moment was deserted, and stretched on straight for as far as the eye could see. Littered along the sides were fields of crops with the occasional barnyard located within them. The early morning sun was just beginning to rise, and it gave Johnny enough light to read the sign that said ‘Daegu Northbound’ in Hangul. Their plan is to head north, into the mountains, and to avoid the major cities.

Johnny turned his gaze to the mirror, and looked into the backseat. Huddled into the backseat were his husband and son curled up, Jeno sleeping softly within Ten’s arms. He looked so precious when he slept, as if he didn’t have a single care in the world.

Ten on the other hand looked a mess. His skin was slightly paler than usual, and he had dark sleeping bags underneath his eyes. Barely visible beneath the hoodie he was wearing was a nasty gash on his right forearm. Johnny could sympathize with Ten’s injuries. His ankle had a large bruise on it, and he had a deep cut just above his eye, which went through his bushy eyebrow. It wasn’t life threatening, but it didn’t make Johnny look appealing.

Not that looks were something to care about during the end of the world, of course, but Johnny still wanted to look good for Ten.

As the car was cruising further down the road, on the edge were a couple of figures. Veering so Jonny was on the wrong side of the road to avoid them, as the car got closer, he could tell that they weren’t members of the undead.

They were just regular hitchhikers.

The car Johnny was currently driving could only (comfortably) hold 4 people, yet Jeno could always share a seat with whoever wasn’t driving at the time by sitting on their lap, so all together the Seo family took up 2 seats. However, there were 3 hitchhikers, who were holding a cardboard cutout sign saying ‘SEOUL’ in scribbled writing. As Johnny’s vision became clearer, he could tell they were men. There was no way they could all fit in Johnny’s car, even if he wanted to help.

Which he didn’t. He had no idea what these men’s intentions were, for all he knew the hitchhiking act was just a trick to steal the car for themselves, and Johnny’s top most priority at the moment was keeping Jeno and Ten safe. As well as this, Johnny wasn’t planning on driving to Seoul. If anything, that was quite the opposite of the plan he and Ten had devised a couple of nights ago.

But Johnny couldn’t just be a prick and drive past. Not only was that rude, but by the odd chance that these men were armed, they could shoot at the car and bust a tire, or worse case scenario, shoot one of them. And if Jeno got harmed, he’d never forgive himself. So, with that in mind, Johnny slowed the car down as he approached the hitchhikers, stopping several meters away from them, before leaving the car. As a precaution, Johnny’s pistol was resting in its holder on the back of his belt.

Johnny stood still, after closing the car door, as the 3 men began to walk towards him. All of them had messy hair, and were fairly skinny. One of them was limping, bandages covering his leg, with the other helping him walk, acting as a human crutch. Upon closer inspection, the limping boy was actually quite bulky in his stature, yet his face implied he was much younger than the 2 men he was travelling with. The last of the 3 men, who was clearly distinguishable as the leader, was striding before them.

“Hello,” Johnny said with a confident tone, but attempting to not come across as cocky. “How are you?”

The man who had reached Johnny first, the other two still straggling behind, spoke for the group. “We’re uh… we’re struggling, Sir. One of our group has a broken leg, and we really need help getting to Seoul. Apparently, they’ve been able to cure this disease, so we real-“

“Really? A cure?” Johnny interupted him, a flame of hope igniting within him.

“That’s what the rumour is,” the leader said, with the other two men having caught up now. The group all bowed to each other in greeting, before the man in front nodded towards the vehcile. “That your car?”

“To a degree. I found it deserted whilst I was trying to get out of Busan,” Johnny said matter of factly, taking the time to observe the men. On closer inspection, all of them had dark bags underneath their eyes, and Johnny couldn’t help but liken the man he had spoken to during this time with to that of a bunny rabbit.

“Would you be able to drive us to Seoul? Please?” The man who was helping the limping boy spoke out, desperation flooding through his voice. Johnny let out a deep sigh.

“There isn’t enough room in the car. I’m really sorry. I’ll see if I have any medicine to help in my bag-“

“That won’t be necessary,” The bunny-man said with a smile whilst he pulled out a gun from his jacket, and aimed it at Johnny’s head. “Give us the car,” he said.

The limping man and his accomplice gasped in shock, looking fearfully between the exchange. “Doyounie, no, this isn’t the way to do this,”

Johnny pulled out his own gun, and aimed it at the man called Doyoung. “I can’t let that happen, I’m… I’m really sorry. I am. But we’re all going to end up better off if you let me get into the car, and drive away. No one will get hurt.”

Doyoung tutted, his agression rising. “You selfish bastard. You’re keeping this entire car to yourself! You could be helping other people!” he whined, waving his gun around. “If I shot you right now, I bet no one would even care,” he spat on the ground before Johnny.

The sound of the car door opening behind him, followed by the sound of shoes on gravel, shocked the hitchhikers and Johnny. But Johnny knew better than to avert his gaze.

“Appa!” Jeno shouted, running forward and clutching Johnny’s leg from behind. Johnny’s eyes widened in fear for Jeno’s safety.

“Get back in the car, Jeno-ie,” Johnny tried to say with as much jurisdiction as possible.

This was when Johnny was the most vulnerable: when the most important person in his life was in the same scene as guns and aggressive men.

Jeno looked at Doyoung from between Johnny’s legs, tears springing into the child’s eyes, as if he was pleading with the stranger internally to leave him and his Appas alone.

The hitchhiker that was helping the man with the broken leg, who had now found his way to sitting on the ground, walked forwards slowly, and after patting Doyoung’s back he knealt down, looking in Jeno’s direction. “Hi there,” he said slowly, directed towards the smaller boy. The man was trying to ignore Johnny’s death glare into his skull. One false move towards his son, and Johnny would shoot all 3 of them without any remorse.

“My name is Kim Jungwoo! What’s yours?” He smiled to the boy, acting as though the two men above him weren’t aiming guns at each other.

Jeno pouted, using Johnny’s leg as a protective barrier, before stepping out slightly and introducing himself. “My n-name is Jeno,” he stuttered, before rushing back behind Johnny.

“That’s a pretty name for a pretty boy!” He smiled. His smile widened when he saw Jeno giggle behind Johnny’s leg. “I don’t want you to worry, Jeno, no one’s going to get hurt here,” Jungwoo then turned his gaze upwards, so he was making eye contact with Doyoung, “Are they?” he uttered in a more serious tone.

Doyoung let out a sigh, before putting his pistol back in his jacket. “No, babe,” he said, defeated. Johnny smirked.

This Doyoung, who had so threateningly demanded him to give up his car, was completely and utterly whipped for Jungwoo. Johnny put his gun away, before lifting Jeno up into his arms, his arms latching around Johnny’s neck.

“Appa are we going to run again?” Jeno asked innocently. He must of remembered this position from all the times he’d been in danger in the past 2 weeks, with his Appas rescuing him.

“No baby,” he answered back. The sound of a car door opening was heard once again.

Ten, rubbing his eyes, walked into the fresh air, before gasping in shock when his eyes made contact with the other men.

 

~°•. ?? / 10 / 2027 : 05:??am .•°~

 

The family had been walking for what seemed like weeks through the woods, the cold winds and the freezing temperatures at night reducing morale between the 3 of them. Food was becoming scarce, sleep was all too limited and ammunition was running dangerously low. Not to mention Jeno had developed a nasty cold and his sniffles and soft whimpers whilst walking through the thick snow of the forest floor practically drove a spear of guilt through the parents for almost forcing him into this lifestyle.

It wasn’t a choice, though. No one could of predicted the apocalypse, but that didn’t stop Johnny and Ten feeling like the worse parents in the world for putting Jeno into this tortorous situation. Realistically however, they were probably quite high on the list of successful parents right now. At least their child was still alive. How many others could say the same?

Yet, was being alive considered a good thing nowadays?

It was thanks to these conditions that caused Ten to gasp in shock when he thought he saw his best friend from college standing not too far away from them in a dimly lit clearing ahead of him.

“Johnny-ah,” Ten whispered, faultering in his steps. He was always trying to remain strong, put on a brave face when the world continued to collapse around him, but perhaps seeing a vision of his old best friend was the final factor that contributed to tipping him over the edge. Ten could put up with a lot, but hallucinations were not on that list.

“Hm?” Johnny asked, turning around, not having noticed that Ten had slowed down. He must’ve been trapped in his own world. Jeno aimlessly stood next to Ten, who by now had stopped walking, and looked at Johnny with tears in his eyes.

“Johnny-ah… I don’t know how long I can… keep going like this,” he whimpered, hoping Jeno wouldn’t be able to hear him. But the only sounds that accompanied the family besides Ten’s voice was the chattering of Jeno’s teeth, the wind blowing through autumnal leaves and then soft whistles of owls in some far distant trees. “I think I’m… I think I’m seeing things now,”

Ten collapsed to the floor on his knees, Jeno gasping in shock and jumping back at the sudden movement. Johnny rushed forward, and caught his husband before he could collapse into the snow face first. Jeno looked on with worried eyes, watching his father break down infront of him.

And there was nothing he could do.

Ten latched himself onto Johnny, sobbing muffled by Johnny’s winter coat, which was quickly dampening. “I’m sick of this Johnny, I’m fucking… I’m fucking sick of it. I just want us to live a normal life, like we used to. I’m constantly riddled by thoughts that we’re just… we’re just going to lose each other, that we’re going to lose Jeno, and if we do then… I’ll never forgive myself, Johnny. I have no place in this world without either of you,” Ten whimpered, beginning to cry incoherently.

Johnny cooed sweet nothings into Ten’s ear, and opened his arm in Jeno’s direction. Their son scrambled forward, enveloping himself between his father’s warm bodies, trying to wrap his tiny 5 year old arms around the 2 grown up men’s bodies. Ten’s sobbing began to faulter, perhaps due to the faint sense of normality that the group hug brought back to his life.

The family detatched themselves from the hug, Johnny patting Jeno’s head gently and giving Ten a peck on his chapped lips, before turning around to continue walking.

“Johnny, wait,” Ten whispered, grabbing Johnny’s arm quickly in an attempt to stop him from walking off.

But Johnny had stopped walking already.

“I… am I still hallucinating? Do you see Jaehyun too?” Ten whispered, looking ahead at the clearing. The figure had moved closer, his once honey coloured locks having returned to their natural black, coated with a light dusting of snow. He stood gaping in shock at the family.

Johnny nodded. His body tensed against Ten’s, perhaps in anger, for some reason.

It was painfully ironic, and the whole situation elicited a small (yet delirious) laugh to escape Ten’s lips. Just as he was on the verge of breakdown, missing the familiar, there was one of the biggest fragments from his educational life.

Jung Jaehyun. Alive, living and breathing, and waving at the family from the forest clearing, machine gun in hand.

 

~°•. 24 / 04 / 2025 : 00:02am .•°~

 

Ten whimpered, his doctor’s uniform clinging to his body thanks to a mix of sweat and dried blood. He stumbled up the path leading to his house, exhaustion overtaking his body. The memories flooded back too easily from the past 12 hours, the narrow escape from the hospital, the adventure on the subway, before a perilous walk through the eerily silent suburbs that he called home.

But he made it. He made it back home, against all odds. Ten managed to obtain a small gun from a (dead) police officer he found in the street during the walk that occurred earlier that day, but he was fairly sure he had little to no bullets left.

The over wracking guilt overtook him whenever the reality of the situation came back to bite at Ten’s sanity like a savage dog.

He had killed people today. It was entirely in self defence, but the images of bodies flopping lifelessly to the floor due to Ten’s action of pulling a pistol’s trigger, or the wielding of a fire extinguisher in some cases, seemed to be imprinted on his brain.

But that was all behind him. Ten climbed up the porch steps, and gently balled up his fist before knocking on the front door. His front door.

No answer.

Please God. Please let them be here. Please let them be alive, Ten pleaded to himself, as he began to tap on the door once more.

More silence was all he the ’96 liner was met with.

“Please… please, Johnny, Jeno, are you in there,” Ten began to whimper now, leaning on the front door with the essence of desperation, tapping softer now. He pressed his forehead against the door, fighting to keep the tears back. Had his entire journey been back home been for nothing? The tiredness began to grip each of Ten’s limbs, his eyelids becoming heavier with each passing breath.

A distant noise brought all the attention back to the Thai man’s body. But it wasn’t from inside the house. No, the universe wasn’t that nice.

Instead, as Ten turned around, he saw the shuffling of one of his neighbours, he didn’t have the energy to remember her name, coming down the path. She was wearing pyjamas with kitten cartoons dotted all over them, red staining an area of her right torso. Her graying hair was bundled up in a rainbow of colourful curlers. The all too familiar lifeless look had invaded her eyes, and she bared her teeth as she stumbled slowly down Ten’s path.

The doctor pulled his arm up lazily at the woman, gun in hand, and pressed his finger down on the trigger.

Nothing.

All the remaining hope and energy was drained from his body with the resulting click of an empty gun chamber. Ten slumped against the front door, sitting against it on the cold porch, accepting his fate as the undead woman got closer and closer. This wasn’t such a bad place to die. A lot of happy memories had been made in this front garden. Ten lacked the energy to recall them. All that he could focus on were his family, and the fact that they were most likely dead by now. Just other members of the large crowds of the undead.

And now Ten could join them.

The thought of Jeno having a lifeless look invading his face brought stinging tears to Ten’s eyes, clouding his vision. The figure was getting closer. It wouldn’t be long now.

But if his family was dead, his only true sources of happiness ripped untimely out of his life, perhaps it was for the best that he would die. He had a luxury that not many could afford; he was able to die on his own terms, seeing as if he really wanted to, he could overpower the woman through sheer force, or jump the neighbouring fences to escape. But he didn’t want to. And whilst many were subject to death in the unfamiliar grasps of cities and unknown settings, Ten was almost being allowed to die where he was the most comfortable. His house. His home.

The growling became louder, and suddenly Ten felt a foreign hand grip his ankle.

He was expecting it by now, awaiting the sensation of skin being ripped apart between canine-like teeth, waiting to be greeted by death and to be forced to roam the streets as a corpse.

But was he was not expecting was the loud thud of, what sounded like wood, on the woman’s skull, causing her to slump over onto Ten’s feet. Ten fearfully opened his eyes, and looked at the unmoving body of the woman resting at his feet.

As he turned his gaze upwards, he almost couldn’t recognize the man standing infront of him, with a tiny figure cradled around his back, latched onto his neck.

“Tennie?”

“Johnny?”

“Appa!”

 

~°•. 20 / 05 / 2025 : 10:43pm .•°~

 

Johnny slowed the car, gently bringing it to a stop. Each side of the road was littered with large pine trees, obscuring the star spotted sky with its branches. Looking in the back mirror, he saw Ten using his sleeve to dab away a cut on Jeno’s forehead, whilst the young child slept in his lap. Tear stains were visible on Ten’s cheeks, making darker marks on both his skin and the dirty shirt he was still wearing. In the passenger seat was Lucas, who looked no different than when the family had met him a few days ago, besides a few more fresh bandages on his arms and legs.

There was no one else in the car but those 4.

Having stopped the car, Johnny unbuckles his seat belt and opens the door, leaving the vehicle. He lets out a deep sigh and inhales the fresh, cold forest air that surrounded him. The last 24 hours had been incredibly dramatic, and he needed a breather. Even if it was just for a few minutes.

And who could blame him? The last time he’d seen that many people die was when he was still struggling to escape Busan with Jeno. Not quite to that extent, but still; it was a lot of death for someone to have to endure.

The ’95 liner leaned on the side of the car, crossing his arms. Only the sounds of owls, a light breeze and his heart beat filled the night air. They were disturbed with the opening and shutting of a car door, and a man coming to stand next to him.

“H-Hey,” Lucas whimpered, letting out a slight groan as he leaned on the car, beside Johnny. His leg was severely, and now with the absence of Doyoung and Jungwoo, no one was really there to constantly support him.

“Hi Lucas. How are you holding up buddy?”

Lucas let out a small grunt. Like a parent, Johnny wrapped his arm around the younger’s shoulder, and gave it a warm squeeze. He then put his arm back to his side.

The men leaned against the car, not looking at each other, just shrouded in their own thoughts as they looked absent mindedly straight ahead.

“You know, I wasn’t always like this. Before the outbreak I played football and everything, but with this dead leg I just feel like… a constant inconvenience.”

Johnny listened to Lucas, but didn’t respond.

The silence became suffocating.

“Was it my fault, Johnny? Am I the reason Doyoung Hyung died?”

“What?” Johnny said in disbelief, turning to look at him.

“If I could of… just grabbed him. Then he wouldn’t of been…” Lucas’ voice faultered until his whisper resulted in just mouthing words. He let out a sigh.

“Doyoung had made up his mind, Lucas. You’re not to blame at all.”

Lucas, unhappy with the answer, let out a sigh. “But I could of prevented it all from happening, Johnny. If Jungwoo wasn’t looking after me, then he’d still be here. Then Doyoung would still be here too. It all fucking leads down to me,” Lucas began to raise his voice, tears streaming down his cheeks. “They were my only friends. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t even still be here, and now they’re dead. Because of me.”

“Lucas, blaming yourself isn’t going to help anyone.”

The younger pursed his lips.

Silence shrouded the pair for a couple more minutes, before Lucas began to speak again.

“On the day when it all happened, the Hyungs and I were on our way to visit my…” Lucas’ voice trembled slightly, “Boyfriend,” before regaining confidence, “in Busan city hospital. On the way to the hospital we got into a car crash. The streets were fucking… they were chaos, man.”

Johnny could remember clearly what Busan was like during that fateful day.

“I couldn’t get up, my leg was completely shattered. Those.. those things were getting closer and closer, but it was Doyoung and Jungwoo that were fighting them off whilst I just lay in the back seat, crying, incapable of doing anything. We eventually got out, but… we had to leave the city. We never got to the hospital. I have no fucking idea if my boyfriend is even still alive.”

The older man thought back to that day, the constant fear that was gripping at him with each step he took with Jeno on his back, as to whether Ten was even still alive. He thanked the universe each day that he managed to find Ten in time, huddled in a ball on the front step.

Johnny couldn’t imagine the pain that Lucas must be feeling, both for the deaths of Jungwoo and Doyoung and for the ambiguity surrounding his boyfriend’s current state.

“Why was he in hospital?” Johnny asked tentatively. Lucas was only in his late teen years, so he was scared to say something that may trigger his hormonal anger.

“He was assaulted on his way back to his house. What if-“ Lucas stopped speaking.

“What if what?” Johnny asked.

“What if he was… bitten?”

It was a high possibility.

“What if who was bitten?” The sound of a car door shutting caused Johnny to turn his head towards Ten, who had left a sleeping Jeno in the backseat, and joined the group’s conversation.

“My uh… my boyfriend.” Lucas whispered.

“Babe weren’t you on shift that night?” Johnny asked. “The 23rd?”

Ten nodded. “Yeah, I remember because I promised you that we’d have dinner for Jeno’s birthday that night but… we never got the chance,” he whispered, moving closer to encircle his arm within Johnny’s.

Lucas’ hopes were reborn within him, and he turned with slight desperation towards Ten.

“Do you remember a guy coming in with a case of assault? He was uh, slight shorter than me, dark black hair, I think he was wearing a brown bomber jacket,” he asked frantically.

Ten looked puzzled. “Um, what was his name?”

“Mark Lee.”

Ten thought for a while, but no one of that description particularly came to mind. “I’m sorry Lucas I really can’t remember much. It wasn’t the uh… the most pleasant time. My memory has most likely blocked it out.”

The crushing effect Ten’s words had on Lucas was evident by his facial expression, his slight smile practically reversing, his eyes turning downcast and his brows furrowing in sadness.

“Oh, okay.” He whispered.

“But, that doesn’t mean he’s not still alive, Lucas. Ten managed to escape the hospital, I’m sure Mark could’ve as well,” Johnny tried to console him, but he had began to walk off.

“It’s whatever. I’m just… I’m just going to try get some sleep now. Thanks guys,” Lucas whispered, before getting back in the car.

Ten and Johnny shared a sorrowful look between them, before Johnny clamboured into the backseat to get some rest, whilst Ten got into the driving seat.

 

~°•. 01 / 02 / 2017 : 05:29pm .•°~

 

“Say cheese!”

“Huh?” Johnny turned around, to face Ten, but was blinded by the flashing of a camera. “Babe what the hell?” He laughed, with Ten taking the polaroid that was slowly emerging from the camera, and waving it to get the ink to dry.

“I hope this comes out looking good,” Ten smirks, looking at his boyfriend who was still reeling from the sudden blindness.

“I didn’t even get the chance to smile,” Johnny whines, moving over next to Ten so he can observe the finished photo.

He wishes he hadn’t.

Ten immeaditley burst into laughter when he looked at the goofy facial expression Johnny was pulling, losing his balance and landing on the soft carpet of Johnny’s apartment. His ribs began to ache as he was laughing too much, whilst Johnny looked down at the mess that he called his boyfriend, and the serious expression he was pulling was becoming harder and harder to uphold with each laugh that came from Ten’s body.

“It’s not even that funny!” Johnny complained, but this only brought on more laughs from Ten’s lithe body.

Eventually, Ten regained his footing, and moved over to Johnny who was currently sat at the kitchen island. “I am SO keeping this polaroid,” Ten teased, giggling slightly as he held the photo, taking Johnny into his arms.

 

~°•. 12 / 10 / 2024 : 05:04pm .•°~

 

Jeno flopped down onto the soil of the patch, and reached out for a bright orange pumpkin. Ten knealt down next to him, and patted it.

“Do you like this one baby?” Ten smiled, scuffling his hair up slightly. Jeno let out a giggle.

“Yes!”

“Then we’ll get it!” Ten said, picking Jeno up in a swift motion and tickling his belly, to which Jeno began to laugh extremely loudly, wriggling around in discomfort at the tickling sensation.

It had been a while since Ten had managed to have a day off with Jeno. Work at the hospital had been busier than ever due to a small outbreak of swine flu, but as a new vaccination had been introduced a few weeks ago, Ten was able to catch a break. He felt bad for missing so much time with his son, as well as Johnny, but he knew Johnny understood. Jeno was too young to understand why on some nights Ten didn’t come home, and on some mornings why he wasn’t there waking him up. Ten always felt guilty, but he savoured days like this where he could just spend some quality time with his beloved son.

“Appa we have ice cream?” Jeno said, smiling widely. Ten scoffed slightly.

“Ice cream? In this weather? Baby you’ll catch a cold!”

“Uwaa! Please!” Jeno fluttered his eyelashes ever so slightly.

Ten sighed. Jeno was extremely clever in the fact that he knew exactly what buttons to press in order for his dad to bend to his will.

“Fine! But don’t tell your Appa,” Ten giggled, tapping his son’s cute button nose.

 

~°•. ?? / 02 / 2028 : 00:??am .•°~  
[ non-con element present ]

 

A knock on the cabin door startled Ten, bringing him to an upright position immeaditley. He was currently in bed with Johnny, who was spooning him, and a sleeping Jeno in a small bed next to theirs. It was the cosiest accomodation that the family had been subject to for a long time, so even if the rules at this settlement were slightly more… strict, it was definitley worth staying.

Another knock resounded through the bedroom of the cabin. Ten gingerly extracted himself from Johnny’s warm embrace, and opened the door. On the other side was one of the female guards, Ten vaguely remembered her name as Vivi, and her faded pink hair was barely visible in the darkness of the cabin.

“Jaehyun wishes to see you,” She coldly said, her demeanour matching the temperature of the cabin.

“What? Now?” Ten whispered, careful not to wake up his husband or son. Vivi simply nodded in response. “Isn’t it a bit late?”

“I’m sorry but, he seemed like it was urgent. Please report to him as soon as possible,” Vivi stated, before marching off through the snow, back to the dimly lit warehouse.

The stronghold that they were currently in was ruled under the iron fist of Jaehyun; Ten’s previous friend from when he was in college. They’d been through highs and lows together, and were roommates for the longest time. And whilst he had changed drastically from the once skeptical student that Ten lived with into, dare Ten think it, fearful leader of a post-apocalyptic survival group, he couldn’t really say it was for the worse. Jaehyun had done well for himself. Having escaped Busan, he headed for the mountains, much like Johnny and Ten intended on doing. Jaehyun and his group had found this abandoned warehouse in the middle of the forest, along with some cabins, and they utilized the area to their needs, building a spiked wall around the camp, and even setting up their own laws and regulations for the ‘citizens’ to abide by.

Ten didn’t really care about any of that, though. As long as he and his family slept well at night and had enough to eat, this was a life he could get used to fast.

But what he did care about was being called up to his office in the warehouse at such an ungodly time of night. Ten made sure to get into his winter coat and put on some boots he'd been given from the stockpile, and made the short walk to Jaehyun’s office. He knocked lightly on his door, but to his surprise, the door wafted open.

The stench of liqour, something which Ten hadn’t smelt for what seemed like years (in fact, it probably was by this point), clouded the room. Jaehyun sat hunched over his desk, several empty green bottles littered around the room. He must have dug deep into the ‘forbidden’ section of the stockpile to find such a supply of liquour.

“Jaehyun? Are you alright?”

There was a certain etiquette that Jaehyun commanded from his citizens, almost acting like a general in the army. Ten could always skirt around it, having known him for so long, that the ‘formalities’ didn’t seem needed.

Jaehyun moved his head up and started at Ten. It almost sent a shiver down Ten’s spine, but no. He was stronger than that.

“Close the door, Ten.”

“Uh… okay,” Ten whispered, moving back and shutting the door to the office. By the time he had turned around, Jaehyun had descended on him, the stench of liquor flooding Ten’s nostrils.

“I’ve always wanted you, Ten,” Jaehyun purred, shakily moving his finger down the side of Ten’s cheek. Ten let out a whimper as he was pinned to the door by Jaehyun, who was pressing his body further into Ten’s. “I can’t believe I’m fucking admitting this to you now…” Jaehyun chuckled uneasily. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to say this?” he asked Ten, who shook his head. “Ever since we were in college, I was always crushing on you. Trust that fuckwit Johnny to ruin my chances,” the predator whispered carefully. “Why didn’t you notice Ten,” his voice began to raise, “Why the FUCK-“ Jaehyun slammed his fist on the door, causing a sob to escape Ten’s body, “didn’t you notice,” The man reduced himself back to a whisper. “Maybe if you had just noticed how madly I wanted you in college, it wouldn’t of had to happen like this,”

Jaehyun moved his palm from it’s position around Ten’s face down his shirt, and then into his pants. Ten let out a shriek, and pushed Jaehyun away.

“Jaehyun, stop,” Ten backed away, but was met with the cold feel of the door.

“Who’s gonna stop me, huh?” Jaehyun grinned, grabbing Ten and throwing him to the desk. The wind was knocked out of him as his stomach forcibly hits the wood, and just as he recovers, Jaehyun is behind him, pressing into his back. “Are you gonna stop me, you fucking slut? You’re big bad Johnny isn’t here to protect you now,” He lets out a laugh.

Ten was crying now, feeling someone other than Johnny touching his body in an overly aggressive, almost feral like, manner. He tried to wriggle, but it was useless. Jaehyun had him pinned.

Just as Jaehyun’s zipper came undone, there was a knock on the door. Before Jaehyun had a chance to react, Ten managed to shout out “Come in!” in a shaky voice. The other quickly removed himself off of Ten, who was now silently sobbing. The door opened with a creak.

“Jaehyun Sir,” Vivi announced, before bowing incredibly deeply. Jaehyun waved his hand, dismissing her. A pleading look from Ten bore into the pink haired girl, who by now had noticed the tense atmosphere in the room. “Jaemin has returned from his gathering trip, and is need of medical attention. Please may Ten be excused from this uh,” she gestured with her finger at the state of the room, which had strewn liquor bottles everywhere. “Situation, and attend to Jaemin?”

Ten answered before Jaehyun could deny his request. “Yes, of course Vivi. Me and Jaehyun were just finished talking. He needed some medical attention as well, but, he’s all better now. Aren’t you, Jaehyun?” He glared at the man, who looked overly vulnerable for such a predator.

He nodded, dumbfounded as to why Ten didn’t throw him under the bus, and expose to Vivi how their leader had just forced himself onto him. Nontheless, Ten let Vivi lead the way out of the warehouse and into the cold air of the snow.

“So, what is Jaemin in need of-“

“Jaemin doesn’t need medical attention, Ten.” Vivi turned to look at him, the torch she was holding illuminating her strong facial features. “I know what Jaehyun tried to do. It’s in your best advice to leave this place as fast as you can. Please,” Vivi began to plead almost, taking Ten’s hand into hers. “Please leave. He has terrible things planned.”

“L-Like what?” Ten stuttered slightly, looking anxiously.

Vivi pursed her lips. “That doesn’t matter. Just… the faster you leave. The better. Now,” Vivi brushed herself off. “If Jaehyun asks, Jaemin received a cut on his leg. You treated it and then returned straight back to your cabin. Jaehyun will most likely have passed out by the time I return, so I wouldn’t worry.”

Vivi began to stride off, but Ten caught up to her, grabbing her wrist.

“Vivi?”

“Hm?”

“Thank you. Thank you for saving me and warning me,” he whispered.

“Just because we’re living in an evil world doesn’t mean we must become evil ourselves, Ten. Have a good night,”

Vivi walked off to her cabin, the torch light slowly fading in the crisp night air. Ten walked back to his cabin, and returned to find Johnny sat upright, looking around anxiously. Upon opening the door, Johnny rushed up to him and took him into a hug.

“Ten, where did you go, I thought someone took you or that you had dissapeared again or that they’d gotten you or-“ Johnny’s words of worry slowly died down, after Ten tightened the hug.

“Jae-…”

Ten paused. Should he say anything?

He shook his head. “It’s nothing. Jaemin just needed something to help his leg. Now, lets… go back to sleep,” he whispered. Hopefully Johnny wouldn’t be able to hear the pure terror that had invaded his usually stable voice, but this was to no luck. Johnny looked at his husband with a sense of distrust, as if he could tell Ten wasn’t telling the entire truth. Ten felt guilty for lying to his husband. Nontheless, Johnny must have let it go, giving his husband a chaste kiss before taking him into a hug again.

The couple got back into bed. That night, Johnny didn’t let Ten go, wrapping him into his arms as tight as possible, with the younger nuzzling his head into the other’s bare chest.

 

~°•. 11 / 05 / 2025 : 12:39pm .•°~

 

Johnny was assigned to help Yuta, Sicheng, Doyoung and some other guys with the task of building a wall out of logs found at a nearby lumber mill around the campsite. Luckily, Johnny was used to lifting heavy loads with his job before the apocalypse, and so lifting the logs didn’t prove to be very difficult. As well as this, there was a nice sense of community resounding over the camp, with everyone who was able to pitching in to help towards the effort of better securing the camp.

“So, Yuta, you and your family aren’t from here are they?” Doyoung said in passing conversation whilst he passed Sicheng some nails.

“Ah, no. We’re originally from China. Well, I’m from Japan, but we live in China as a family. We decided to come to Korea for a nice vacation, what with work becoming a bit too stressful, but uh… yeah. A few days before our flight back, this whole thing broke out, and we’re kind of stuck here,” he chuckled slightly, rubbing Sicheng’s back as he was fixing some nails into something. “I’m just glad I know the language, cause I went to school here. But Sicheng doesn’t, and neither do Renjunnie or Lele, so… I’m kind of the mouthpeice at the moment!” Yuta joked, smiling, before returning to his work. “Luckily I have a tendency to talk too much anyway! So it could be worse I guess,” Yuta smiled.

“Damn, this must be quite the holiday,” Doyoung chuckled, to which Yuta grimaced.

“Yeah, it’s something.”

“Do you think this is just happening here or do you think other places are faring off better?” Johnny asked whilst dragging a log past the group of men.

Doyoung looked to him. “I don’t know, man. I mean, if it was just happening here, we would’ve gotten some help by now, surely.”

“That’s true. Plus on the news, there were reports of these cases in South America and Europe too, so it’s most likely an international issue,” Yuta chimed in.

Sicheng murmured something to Yuta in Chinese, to which Yuta replied back instantly. Johnny just assumed he was translating the conversation that just happened.

The younger Chinese man turned to the group, almost instantly captivating their attention. “We cannot… lose hope, at this time. It can get better,” Sicheng spoke with a very disjointed Korean accent, but the men could tell he was trying.

Johnny took the words to heart. He could never lose hope. He would never lose hope, not if he had any say in it. He had to be there forever for Ten and Jeno. He had to be that beacon of support that they could lean on. If he had to take a bullet for either, he’d have to be able to take that chance as soon as possible, because the only circumstances in which he’d lose hope was if he had lost both of them.

And Johnny would never let that happen in a million years.

 

~°•. 20 / 06 / 2017 : 00:15am .•°~

 

“So what are your actual intentions with Ten?”

Johnny turned to the source of the voice. Johnny and Ten were currently attending a house party, and the thumping of the bass through the house seemed like it was drilling into Johnny’s head. He was trying to find his boyfriend, when he was confronted by some guy in the corridor.

“Huh?”

“I said… what are your actual intentions with Ten?”

As Johnny moved closer to the man, his identity was revealed.

Jaehyun.

“Jaehyun… what do you mean?” Johnny asked. He knew that Ten and Jaehyun were very close friends and roommates, in fact, Johnny had sometimes ran into him when he spent the night at Ten’s apartment. But for some unknown reason to Johnny, Jaehyun was always cold to him. It unnerved Johnny, to say the least.

“Are you just with him for a good fuck? Want to throw him aside when you’re done with him like you have done the rest of this town?” Jaehyun practically spat at him.

Johnny wasn’t a prude; not by a long shot. But to say he had slept with that many people was an outright rude assumption, implying Johnny was some kind of fuck boy. He knew he loved Ten, and that he wouldn’t mind spending the rest of his life with him, but that wasn’t any of Jaehyun’s business to know.

“The fuck do you mean?” Johnny’s voice resorted to a low growl. “You think I’m just some kind of fuck boy, don’t you? You never liked Ten and I together, I fucking knew it,” Johnny sneered.

“I don’t think, Johnny,” Jaehyun used the tip of his finger to press into Johnny’s chiselled chest. “I know. I know you’re only with Ten because he’s an easy shag. Why else would you be?”

A flick was turned on inside of Johnny. Maybe it was Jaehyun outright insulting Ten, or maybe it was the constant insulting of Johnny’s integrity. Perhaps it was the alcohol flowing freely in Johnny’s veins. Either way, it must have been one of these, or perhaps a mix of all of them, that caused Johnny to ball Jaehyun’s shirt up in his fist and pin him against the wall.

“If you fucking talk about Ten like that again, I’ll beat your fucking face in,” Johnny whispered, pushing Jaehyun back into the wall.

“Just admit it, Johnny. You only want him for the sex. He’s a slut. Just leave him before you start to get feelings.”

“I fucking love him, Jaehyun, and you can’t change that.”

As Johnny turned his head, a figure was standing in the dimly lit corridor. He must of only heard the last line, because his attention was focused on Johnny.

“Y-You… what?” Ten asked, his whisper barely audible over the thumping of music in the house.

Johnny stepped forward, taking Ten’s hand into his much larger one.

“I love you, Ten.”

“I love you too, Johnny,” Ten gasped, wrapping his arms around Johnny as the tears began to fall. “I love you so much,” he whispered into his chest. Johnny encased him into his arms, and the pair hugged for what seemed like an eternity. It was warm, comfortable, and felt like home to both of them.

Jaehyun stood awkwardly watching them. Eventually, after the pair extracted themselves, Johnny wrapped his arm protectively around Ten’s shoulder.

“Ah, Jaehyunnie, I didn’t even see you there,” he giggled softly. “Did I interupt something between you two?” Ten asks, looking between Johnny and Jaehyun.

“No, Ten. Jaehyun was just saying how I shouldn’t drink too much, so I can still drive you safely home.”

To be honest, Johnny didn’t know why he was covering for Jaehyun. He could just expose him right here, say how he called Ten a slut and a whore and an ‘easy fuck’, ruining their friendship of many years in a few petty seconds. But he knew better than that.

“Oh. Well that’s nice of you, Jaehyun,” he smiled, taking Jaehyun into a drunken hug. If looks could kill, Johnny would be 6 feet under thanks to the daggers thrown from Jaehyun’s eyes as Ten hugged him.

“Get home safe, Tennie. I’ll see you tommorow,” Jaehyun muttered, before walking out of the corridor.

From that day onward, Johnny knew never to trust Jaehyun.

Ever.

 

~°•. ?? / 05 / 2026 : 05:5?pm .•°~

 

Jeno’s feet were aching. The evening sky was illuminating the gorgeous explosions of green on the trees around the road, and the soft whistling of birds were giving Jeno a nice distraction from his arguing parents.

He couldn’t tell what they were arguing about. Jeno was walking several feet behind the quarelling men, their voices raised and their hands moving erratically, as if they’re trying to explain something. He tugged on his backpack ever so slightly, in a sense of annoyance.

“I don’t fucking if she suggested we leave! Neither of us should of let him out of our sight!” He heard Ten say, who had stopped in his tracks. Ten had lifted both of his hands up to his hair, and had began speaking more quietly. Jeno couldn’t tell from the distance he was stood at, but he was fairly sure Ten was crying now.

No, he was definitley sure, because his older Appa had attempted to move into a hug, to which Ten pushed him away.

The yelling had started again.

But Jeno knew exactly what to do. His memories faded back to one day when Ten-Appa was particularly sad, but his smile was brought back when Johnny-Appa brought him a bunch of flowers. They were coloured lilac, and smelt really nice. And Jeno was a smart kid; during this trip along this long stretch of road, he’d seen a bunch of lilac flowers.

So what if he went into the forest to get some? Then Appa would be happy again. And, excluding the luxuries of life prior to the apocalypse, that’s all Jeno wanted really.

After checking neither of his Appa’s were looking, both of them still entrenched in conversation, Jeno slipped off of the road and into the small ditch of the forest floor. Walking straight forward, he looked high and low in an effort to find a patch of lilac flowers. He’d been walking for a couple of minutes, and a feeling rushed through his tiny body.

Exhilleration.

This was the first time Jeno had been on his own… since forever. He felt weirdly independent, and enjoyed it. He couldn’t hear either of his Appa’s loud and angry voices anymore, just the sounds of the forest. It brought a sense of elation to the young boy, and he found peace in the silence.

The young boy’s search was finally brought to an end when a flash of lilac caught his eye. Jeno rushed over to the small clearing in the forest, and knealt down, picking up the tufts of flowers that were now in full bloom. After he had judged that he’d collected enough, Jeno got back his feet and turned around. Now, he just had to walk straight back, and he’d be back at the main road, and be able to cheer up Ten-Appa with his flowers.

But… which was the way that he’d came?

Confusion began to cloud Jeno’s mind, and confusion eventually lead to fear. Where was he? There weren’t any road signs, he couldn’t see the same road from where he was, and he definitley couldn’t hear his Appa’s voices, when he so clearly could but a few minutes ago.

In fact, he wished he could hear the abundance of cuss words leave Johnny-Appa’s mouth, but now, all he could hear was the whistling of the leaves in the wind.

And a faint growling.

Jeno turned around and saw a figure stumbling in the blades of grass ahead of him. The man was wearing a coat stained with dried blood, and his skin was porcelain white. As if in a horror movie, the figure turned it’s head painfully slow in Jeno’s direction, before outstretching it’s arms and shuffling towards him.

Letting out a choke, Jeno turned on his legs and began to ran. He ran as fast as he could, wielding his flowers in his right hand still. He hadn’t been running for more than 5 seconds before a tree root caused his trainer to get caught, bringing him into a slump onto the ground.

In the distance, though, Jeno could hear the faint calling of familiar voices. Tenn and Johnny must have finally noticed Jeno’s absence. They were shouting his name, but they were too far away. Too far away to get here in time.

But what else could Jeno do?

“APPA! APPA!” Jeno screamed, struggling to free his shoe from the tree branch, each tug of his leg bringing a surge of fresh pain to the boy’s ankle. The man in the distance was getting closer, shuffling forward with a sense of urgency.

“JENO!” was the next thing he heard, this time a lot closer. Jeno was crying now, desperatly trying to free his foot from it’s trapped position in the tree branch. The man was so much closer now that Jeno could focus on his washed out eyes, and the blue-purple vein that looked ready to pop out of his forehead. His nails were bright yellow and overly sharp, and were outstretched in Jeno’s direction.

“APPA!” Jeno cried out, this time a lot more shakier, his body being racked with tears. The man descended over Jeno now, growling, knealing down and placing his porcelain hands on the blue fabric of Jeno’s jeans.

That was it. That was the end.

Jeno watched in slow motion as the corpse went to sink it’s teeth into Jeno’s leg-

Before the loud sound of a gunshot echoed through the forest, causing birds to fly free from their nests in the branches above. The man slumped over Jeno’s bite-free body, crushing the kid’s leg in the process. He let out a yelp of pain before Ten was at his feet, shoving the undead being off.

Ten scrambled forward to Jeno, checking for cuts and bruises on his leg, and then taking him into a tearful embrace, hugging him so tightly that Jeno thought he might suffocate.

“Jeno… baby…” Ten’s voice sounded angry, yet his face looked sad. It was a weird mixture, and Jeno definitley did not like it.

“Don’t you ever run away from us like that again.”

Jeno began to speak, “Appa I wa-“

“No, Jeno. Listen to me. Don’t you EVER, run away from us like that again.” Ten’s stare bore into Jeno, frightening him a bit more than the dead man had.

Jeno’s eyes filled with fresh tears, and he weakly nodded. Ten let out a sigh, and then took him into another hug.

“We thought we lost you, baby,” Ten whispered.

“I was looking for… f-for…” Jeno broke down into tears again, clutching onto his Appa. He still held the purple flowers in his fist, hugging into Ten for dear life.

“What were you looking for, Jeno?” Ten whispered, cradling his son, whilst still sat on the forest floor, with the rotting corpse of the man just a few feet away. The bullet wound was still fresh in his forehead, and the smell of brains had wafted into the fresh woodland air.

“I got… flowers,” Jeno whispered, removing himself from the hug and outstretching his balled up fist with the lilac flowers still in them. Ten gasped, before letting out a laugh.

And that’s when Jeno realised that’s what he wanted. He didn’t want to be alone and free in the woods, he remembered the real reason why he had ventured off alone: to find the same flowers that made his Appa so happy, back when times were simple and you didn’t have to worry about the smallest of things being potentially life threatning.

Johnny barged into the small forest clearing, gun held in his hand, looking down at his husband and son. He knealt (well, more like a controlled fall) down next to his family, and took them into his arms. Just before Johnny began to give Jeno a lecture, Ten shook his head and rested his fingers on Johnny’s chest, like a signal that he’d already done it.

Ten pointed to the lilac flowers in Jeno’s hand, and Johnny couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle.

“You nearly got yourself killed over… flowers?” Johnny asked in disbelief, looking down at his son with a sense of shock plastered on his face. Ten let out a similar exhalation of air whilst looking equally shocked at Jeno, before turning to Johnny with a smile of relief.

No.

This is the reason Jeno ventured into the forest in the first place. Seeing his parents happy with each other again was all worth it in the end.

 

~°•. 23 / 04 / 2025 : 01:23pm .•°~

 

Ten pressed on the elevator button of the fifth floor.

No response.

Still checking the coast was clear, the blue and white walls of the hospital Ten worked at were now coated with streaks of red, as though a battle had raged in them not too long ago. Except Ten had missed it, and now he was just in the aftermath. But what worried Ten was where the battle had moved; he hadn’t heard any gunshots during his consultation with Heejin.

Well, before she turned into one of them.

Now, as Ten traipsed through the eerily silent corridors, he could begin to hear faint screams from elsewhere in the hospital, and occassional gunshots. The lights that hung on the ceiling began to flicker ever so slightly, which did not contribute at all to Ten’s feeling of safety.

But Ten had just one objective for the moment; to get out of this hellhole of a hospital, and to get to the medical camp in Busan Sqaure, to meet up with Johnny and Jeno. A brief thought that something had happened to them flashed through his mind, but he shook his head. He could not lose hope during a time like this, he had to be there for his family just as much as they had to be there for him.

It wasn’t over until he saw them. Dead or alive.

The creaking of the fire escape door creaked through the silent corridor, sending chills through Ten’s body. He quickly scrambled into the staircase, and shut the door. Not wasting a moment, he began to fast pace run down the steps, down to the ground level.

His luck was beginning to change, with each floor passing by fine as he descended through the hospital. However, Ten’s luck caught up with him as reached the ground floor. In front of the door to the main lobby was a man, blocking the staircase and Ten from the exit.

His pink hair lay more dishevelled than it had this morning, and his white coat had blood specks dotted all over it. On his white hands were several veins looking like they were ready to pop, and he was emitting a soft growl.

“K-Kun?”

The figure turned around at an alarming speed, and began to limp towards Ten. His eyes were completely white, and his mouth had fresh blood slicked all over it. Kun’s bared teeth were red, not their usual state of pearly white, and each step he took towards Ten sent shivers through his body.

“K-Kun, please,” Ten backed up the stairs as he watched Kun struggle to walk towards him. “Stop!”

Kun let out a growl, and lashed out one of his arms in a sudden jolt of energy through his body. As Ten continued to walk backwards up the stairs, once he had hit the wall with his back, he began to run back up the opposite staircase. Looking frantically for something to defend himself with, his eyes landed on a fire extinguisher that was still locked in it’s case of glass.

As Kun’s growling grew closer from beneath him, Ten inhaled sharply, and then slammed down on the glass using his elbow, causing the glass to shatter and sprinkle on the floor beneath his feet. Unholstering the fire extinguisher, and gasping slightly when he realised how heavy it was, he returned to his place at the top of the staircase and waited for Kun to shuffle closer.

“I’m… I’m so sorry,” Ten whispered, lifting the fire extinguisher and bringing it down on Kun’s head. The sound of cracking filled the air momentarily after, and Kun’s eyes rolled inwards at a lazy pace. The black haired man lost his balance, and fell backwards down the stairs, landing in a lifeless heap at the bottom.

Clamping his mouth over his hand, Ten let out a silent sob and a bow of respect for his dead colleague, and rushed back down the stairs. This time, no one was blocking the door, and he enterred the main lobby of the hospital. Much to his surprise, the lobby was silent. Bodies littered the floor around the desk and seats, blood was splattered across the wall, with some leaflet holders the fake plants having fallen over.

Just as Ten thought he was safe and went to open the main door to leave, a hand grabbed onto his shoulder.

Turning around, fire extinguisher still in hand, a man who can’t have been much older than 19, with a head of black hair and wearing a blood stained brown bomber jacket, went to bite Ten on the shoulder. The latter’s reflexes kicked in, and he pushed the boy off of him, wielding the extinguisher into his head like it was nothing. He slouched to the ground.

Behind him, down the corridor that lead into the hospital, he saw a couple more figures shuffling down. And then more joined them. More joined the horde of the undead until Ten couldn’t count them.

He didn’t have to count, though. Ten quickly made his leave, swinging open the glass door of the hospital and running for his life down the steps, into Busan.

 

~°•. 02 / 08 / 2023 : 12:46pm .•°~

 

The warm embrace of the sun gently grazed over the family as the bobbed in the cool waters of the swimming pool. The smell of grilling meat on a barbeque wafted in the air from a few houses down.

Jeno was wearing tropical swimming trunks and flourescent orange floaties that wrapped around his tiny arms. Ten held him at arms length in the pool, jumping slightly, causing Jeno to bob in the water, eliciting several laughs from the ’22 liner. Johnny on the other hand was doing lengths in the pool, his toned figure passing the others every minute.

Jeno reached for Ten’s wet hair, and began to play with it, much to Ten’s dismay. Once Ten’s black hair was sticking out erratically in spikes that Jeno had fashioned, Johnny began to laugh when he passed the pair again.

“Wow Tennie, so fashionable,” he teased, earning a splash of water from Ten, who was now grinning.

Johnny instantly regretted his teasing when Jeno wriggled free from Ten and reached for him instead. Taking Ten into his arms, Jeno began to mess with Johnny’s hairstyle just as he had done with Ten. Johnny smiled to Jeno and then frowned at Ten.

Not that Ten would’ve noticed. He was too busy laughing at Johnny’s annoyance and hypocrisy.

“Oh wow Hyung so fashionable,” Ten mocked in a high pitch tone. Jeno was oblivious to what was being said, and just babbled incoherently to himself, whilst his parents continued to tease each other light heartedly.

All of a sudden, a thought flashed across Ten’s mind.

“Wait here,” he said, before scrambling out of the pool and drying himself. As he ran into the house, Jeno gave Johnny a confused look, to which Johnny shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t know buddy, your Appa is fu-“ Johnny pursed his lips. “Really crazy,” he chuckled slightly. Good save.

“Okay!” Ten shouted, running back into the back garden, camera in hand. He knealt down to the side of the pool, and aimed the camera at Jeno, who was currently in the other’s arms, and Johnny. “Say cheese!”

“Smile Jeno!” Johnny said, putting on a big smile and using his free hand to do the peace sign with his fingers, with Jeno giving a big gummy smile that reached even up to his eyes.

The clicking of the shutter was followed by Ten’s appreciate “Aww,” as he waved the polaroid and proceeded to show Johnny and Ten, who whilst keeping their distance as they were still in the pool, smiled at it lovingly.

 

~°•. 20 / 05 / 2025 : 04:51pm .•°~

 

Jungwoo let out a quiet moan as he was lifted out of the car and onto the tarmac, his breathing heavy. The bite mark in his leg was pulsating, and was growing darker by the minute. Doyoung was kneeling next to his boyfriend, holding his hand, silently crying. After the attack on the camp, Jungwoo had been bitten by one of the undead, and everyone knew what was coming next.

It was just a matter of time.

It had taken a week and a bit for the defences to fail, and for the undead to pour into the camp at an uncontrollable rate. After narrowly escaping the camp, the group of Johnny, Ten, Jeno, Lucas, Doyoung and Jungwoo had managed to cramp into the car. The whereabouts of the other survivors, like Yuta’s family and Taeil, was unknown now. Johnny drove for what seemed like an eternity when it was really just an hour. However, when Jungwoo’s injury became apparent, with the rest of the group (besides Jungwoo, Doyoung and Lucas) assuming it was just a cut, Johnny had abruptly stopped the car and forced everyone out.

Jungwoo couldn’t control his whimpers any more, and his hand raised in search of Doyoung’s warmth. He was instantly there, taking Jungwoo’s smaller hand into his, looking down in desperation at his lover.

Ten, Johnny, Jeno and Lucas were on the other side of the street, watching Jungwoo and Doyoung.

“Jungwoo, please, I… I can’t go on without you,” Doyoung pleaded almost, his knuckles turning white from clutching onto Jungwoo’s fist too tight.

Jungwoo laughed nervously, his blonde hair reflecting the sun’s rays. “Hyung I-“ he let out a gasp of pain, before regaining himself. “I don’t know how long I have left… please, you have to keep going,”

Ten, whilst watching the scene, clutched onto Johnny’s hand for comfort.

“I love you Jungwoo, I’ll never stop loving you,” Doyoung whispered. He caressed Jungwoo’s face gently, eliciting a sad smile from the younger.

“I love you t-“

Jungwoo shrieked in pain, frightening the onlookers. He freed his hand from Doyoung’s grasp and clutched onto his chest, screaming in shock. Tears fell from both Jungwoo and Doyoung’s face as Jungwoo struggled against the invisible pain within him.

Eventually, the screams subsided, and Jungwoo’s figure froze, before falling back onto the tarmac of the road.

It seemed like even the birds in the trees had stopped singing in respect for the death of Jungwoo. Jeno let out a chocked sob, whilst watching Doyoung shake Jungwoo aimlessly, in a blind attempt to wake him up.

“Jungwoo, please. Please! Please, you can’t leave me! Jungwoo!” He cried, shaking his dead boyfriend with more force this time.

But time was running out. Jungwoo was coming back any second now. The adults had sensed this by now, and Johnny moved forward, placing a hand on Doyoung’s shoulder.

“Doyoung, please, you can’t stay too close-“

“Fuck off Johnny,” he growled, throwing Johnny’s hand off of him. He stopped shaking Jungwoo, and just closed his eyes.

As if Doyoung had made up his mind.

Twenty six.

Jungwoo’s eyes broke open in an instant when Ten had finished counting within his mind. A low growl emerged from the blonde man’s throat, as he observed Doyoung, who was still kneeling beside him.

Jeno couldn’t help but scream when Jungwoo grabbed onto Doyoung’s neck and bit into it harshly, bringing the black haired man down with a yell. Lucas, Ten and Jeno all turned away in shock as Johnny brought his pistol to aim.

And with the sound of 2 gunshots, followed by the slumping of 2 bodies, they knew it was over.

The air hung with a heavy silence, threatening to compress the group.

When Lucas looked at the 2 dead bodies, the 19 year old’s face froze in a state of perpetual horror, a deep feeling of guilt invading his stomach for reasons unknown. Lucas had practically grown up with the 2 men, and to see them both lying dead in front of him was enough to push him over the edge.

“I-“ Lucas let out a sob. “I need to be alone. Just for a minute.”

Lucas walked into the tree line, leaving Jeno and Ten sitting on the side of the street, the ’22 liner frozen in Ten’s arms. A deep sigh could be heard from Johnny behind them.

“We can’t just leave them like this.”

Ten turned to Johnny, who was looking down on Jungwoo and Doyoung’s bodies, the latter’s resting on the former’s.

Around half an hour had passed, before Jungwoo and Doyoung had been lifted by Ten and Johnny to a small clearing that wasn’t too far from the road. The dead couple were placed next to each other, hands resting on their own chests. Once Lucas had calmed down, he and Jeno were tasked with finding flowers for them. After they had procured a bouquet of colourful vegetation, Ten placed them into their hands. All 4 of the group bowed in respect, even Jeno. A silent prayer was cast, and then the group returned to the car.

Giving Doyoung and Jungwoo a “proper” burial (well, as proper as could be managed during the apocalypse) had put Ten and Johnny’s minds at rest; not feeling satisfied with the outcome of Jungwoo’s bite or Doyoung’s suicide, but feeling satisfied with the appropriate care they had given to their corpses.

Ten wasn’t particularly religious, but he hoped both of the men found peace in whatever afterlife lay ahead of them. A world more peaceful than the one they had been untimely thrust into.

 

~°•. ?? / 10 / 2027 : 07:??am .•°~

 

A weird tension hung over the family as they made the trek to Jaehyun’s camp. The rules had been explained to Ten and Johnny on the way, such as the curfew (when the sun was no longer visible due to the lack of clocks), and how everyone must fulfill their assignment for the day, whether that be mending to the walls, gathering for food in the forest, guarding the camp, making runs to the nearby town, ect. There were several cabins that surrounded an abandoned warehouse, which was a lucky find for Jaehyun when he was travelling with his original group. Because the Seo family had a minor, they were permitted to sleep in one of the private cabins, not one of the dormitory cabins which housed the rest of the camps.

But the rules weren’t the source of tension for the family. Whilst Ten was oblivious to Jaehyun and Johnny’s rocky past, a past which they very much hadn’t forgotten, and both being incredibly stubbourn, most likely weren’t willing to just forgive and forget. Johnny could still tell how much Jaehyun disliked himself, as he was always putting all his attention on Ten, whilst completely ignoring both him and Jeno.

Eventually, they reached the spiked walls of the stronghold. Johnny held Jeno’s hand as they followed behind the chatting Jaehyun and Ten, who were laughing and reminiscing on times when they were roommates in college.

Johnny still didn’t trust him.

Jaehyun lead the family to the warehouse, where the ground floor of which was fashioned into a canteen of sorts. There was a long table stretching through the open aired room, with many people crowded around it, eating contents unmarked tins. Just the sight of a meal made Johnny’s stomach growl; he hadn’t eaten properly in such a long time, always giving his portion of a meal to either Ten or Jeno.

“Alright, listen up,” Jaehyun shouted, everyone turning to him immeaditley. The survivors turned their tired eyes to him, but all of them stood and bowed in due time. After they had retaken their seats, Jaehyun proceeded to introduce the Seo family.

“I want you all to welcome our new arrivals. First, we have Ten. We both know each other from before the apocalypse, so I expect you all to treat him and his family with respect. He’s a dear friend, and we’re very lucky to have him with us. Do you still remember most of your stuff from med school, Ten?” Jaehyun asked him, infront of the audience.

“Ah, yes. Yes, I do.”

“Good, that will provide valuable for the community.” Jaehyun nodded, and smiled, before his expression dissipated when turning to Johnny. “And this is Ten’s… husband,” he swallowed slightly. “Johnny, and their son, Jeno,” he gestured to Jeno, who cowered behind Johnny’s leg.

There used to be a time where the young boy loved attention, back when the dead didn’t roam the Earth, but right now, he felt like a deer caught in headlights, and just wanted to be in the protective aura of his parents.

The crowd shuffled up on their row on the canteen table, making space for the family. Ten and Johnny took their seats, before Jaehyun left, walking up the staircase of the warehouse and enterring his office. From his office was a window which had a full view of the canteen below.

For some reason, despite the overwhelming sense of security, a huge part of this didn’t bode well with any members of the family.

Johnny, Ten and Jeno were all given a can of food, to which they began eating rather savagely, before remembering their manners and slowing down. Jeno was perched on Ten’s lap, and was looking over the table at the various new faces. It’d been a long time since he’d seen so many people that were still surviving.

But then someone caught his eye.

Jeno pointed at a man with a mess of unkempt brown hair, even more so than when they had first met him, and a face covered in stubble. Ten and Johnny followed Jeno’s line of sight, before letting out a gasp between them.

“Yuta?” Johnny asked, tentatively.

The man’s head instantly moved to the familiar voice. Yuta, the same Yuta who was at the small camp a few weeks after the whole apocalypse began, was sat at this canteen, more than 2 years later. He’d survived. He had made it. He smiles, not as wide as he had done on their first meeting though, and rises to move around the table. Johnny rises as well and takes him into a fierce hug, followed by Ten, who takes him into a more gentle hug. Even Jeno seems excited to see him, and lifts his arms up, to which Yuta happilly obliges and lifts him up in a hug. Yuta lets out a gravelley chuckle, almost as though he hadn’t laughed in a long time and his body was only now rediscovering the feeling of happiness.

“You’re… you’re still here!” Ten said, smiling, ignoring the stares from some of the other members of the community. Thankfully, the majority had returned back to their meals.

“Ah, yes! I am.”

“It’s been… it’s been so long. We really thought you didn’t make it from that first camp, if we knew you were still alive we’d of come back for you,” Johnny says warmly.

All of a sudden, Yuta’s body freezes at the mention of the old camp.

Shit.

Only now was the lacking presence of the rest of Yuta’s family, Sicheng, Renjun and Chenle, clicking into place for the adults. Ten, being the empathetic man he was, took Yuta into his arms once again.

“I’m so sorry, Yuta,” he whispered. He rubbed Yuta’s back comfortingly, before extracting himself.

“It’s uh… it’s fine. Well, it’s not but, it’s been a long time since…” his body shakes anxiously all of a sudden. The poor man has most likely been trying to forget about the fateful events that ripped his husband and his young boys away from him. Yuta, just like Ten, Johnny and Jeno, had been through a lot. God knows what the man had been through himself.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell us,” Johnny whispered, taking his seat. Some members of the community had began leaving to complete their duties for the day, leaving more space. Yuta reached over for his unfinished meal, and moved it next to the family.

“No it’s… it’s fine.”

Yuta took in a deep breath, steadying himself. Ten and Johnny turned their bodies his way in order to give him their full attention, whilst Jeno had lost interest and returned to his can of food.

“When the undead hit that camp, my… my boy Renjun was bitten. We didn’t know what to do, so we just hoped he’d get better, yknow? We escaped and drove for a few hours, but that was when he started to convulse…” Yuta covered his mouth with his hand, and shook his head. “It was awful. He was only 7 years old. He deserved so much better than… than this fucking world,” Yuta let out a defeated sigh.

He took a sip of a cup of water, and returned to his story, Johnny and Ten hanging on every word of his.

“We managed to get him out of the car before he bit any of us. But… neither me nor Sicheng could manage to end his life. So… we just left him. I will never forget the look on Sicheng’s face when he looked into the rear view mirror and saw our own son shuffling down the road after our car. It… it broke him, which broke me. Sometimes I wonder if it would’ve been better to have just ended his life, yknow. But I would have never been able to pull the trigger,” Yuta’s voice had returned to a whisper, and fresh tears sprang into his eyes.

“But, eventually, 6 months later, we found a new camp. Life was almost returning to normal, there were kids there and everything for Lele to play with, and people who had suffered just as much as we did. It was a true sense of community,” Yuta lowered his voice. “Not like this place, I’ll tell you that,” before raising it back to his normal volume. “But the same thing happened as usual. We managed to say for a few weeks before the undead took it over. It seemed to just be an endless cycle from then onwards… we find a camp, life is satisfactory for a few weeks, and then people who you bond with die, and you restart all over again.”

Ten and Johnny nodded in understanding. They could truly relate to that aspect of Yuta’s story.

“It was just after the following winter when Lele went missing. We searched for fucking… we searched for fucking weeks. I didn’t sleep at all, my body running on the pure hope that Lele was still out there, somewhere, alive and waiting for his Dads.”

Ten spoke quietely, in order to fill the slight pause. “Did you ever find him?”

Yuta nodded slowly. “We found him in a stream, a gunshot through his head. We don’t know who took him, or whether he ran away, or what. But what we do know is that he turned in the time when we were looking for him, and some bastard finished him off before we could find him,” Yuta’s voice faultered. “He was fucking… he was only fucking 5 years old. And he was ripped from our lives as savagely as that,” Yuta’s fists clenched. He regained his composure, and began speaking again. “From then on it was just… it was just me and Sicheng. But he was completely gone by this point. He couldn’t speak, he refused to eat. Do you know how hard it is to experience both of your son’s deaths, both of which you could have prevented somehow, and then you have to witness your soulmate give up on it all?”

Johnny shook his head.

Yuta pursed his lips. He struggled to utter his next words.

“A week later, Sicheng shot himself.”

Ten gasped slightly.

“He took the easy way out. I don’t know who’s death was the most heartbreaking, but each time someone I loved was ripped from my life, a piece of me died,” Yuta sighed, wiping his eyes slightly. “I’m just a shell of a human being now. No one I love is still alive. I have no reason for living. But there’s still something in me… that’s keeping me going. Sicheng always told me, especially after Renjunnie’s death, that we can’t lose hope. We had to keep going for each other. And Sicheng may be gone now, but I’m not going to lose hope. I’m going to keep going for them, and wherever they are now, I hope they’re looking over me, no, I know they’re looking over me with pride. And that is the true reason as to why I can keep going.”

Johnny patted Yuta’s knee comfortingly, to which Yuta smiled.

“It’s so fucking hard, though. And I hate myelf for it, but I can’t help but feel… so fucking jealous of you three. You’re all still here, but who am I with? I’m not even myself anymore…” Yuta’s voice faultered, before he let out a deep sigh, and rushed his hands through his hair. A shrug of his shoulders indicated he was finished sharing.

“Yuta, your family died loving you. And I know for a fact that they’re looking down on you now with nothing but love and respect. So are we,” Ten nodded to Johnny, who nodded in assurance. “You’re the strongest person in this fucking place, Yuta. If I lost Johnny and Jeno, I wouldn’t still be living to tell the tale, that’s for sure.”

Yuta wiped a tear that was dropping from his eye. “Thank you, guys. Thank you. It means so much for me to see you all again. You’re…” he whispered again. “You’re the only people I really trust in this place,” his voice was full of emotion.

“Yeah, I don’t trust Jaehyun,” Johnny whispered. Yuta’s eyebrows raised in surprise, as did Ten’s.

“Huh?” Both of the other guys asked in unison.

“He’s just… I don’t know. Ten, was he really always nice to you?” Johnny asked, in a serious tone.

“Y-Yeah? Why?” Ten asked. All of a sudden, a frown took over his face. “Johnny it’s the fucking end of the world, are you jealous of Jaehyun?”

“What? No, of course I’m not. We’re married and have a son,” Johnny laughed slightly. “I’m just saying, he wasn’t always the most… truthful.”

“How so?” Ten asked, with Yuta leaning in as well. All remnants of the Japanese man’s previous terrible mood had been wiped away, and his look of curious intruige was back on his face.

“He just… it doesn’t matter. I just don’t trust him,” Johnny finished, turning back to his tin.

Ten decided to drop it. After the 4 of them had finished their meals, they promised to meet up during free time later, and left the warehouse to get on with their duties.

 

~°•. ?? / 01 / 2026 : 04:1?pm .•°~

 

Jeno sat on Johnny’s shoulders, absent mindedly playing with his black hair. The family had just finished climbing a rather large hill, and having reached the top, lying in the valley beneath them was a small town, surrounded by hills, with a lake on one side of it. The sun had began to make it’s descent in the sky, casting the begginings of an iridescent glow over the settlement that lay infront of them.

If Ten still had his camera, he would of most definitley taken a polaroid; it was a sight to behold. In fact, the idea brought something to his mind.

“This is beautiful,” Johnny murmered, gazing in awe at the setting. Ten nodded, and sat down on the slightly damp forest floor of the hill they were atop. Johnny followed, with Jeno scampering off his shoulders, and moving himself onto the oldest man’s lap.

“I wish I still had my camera,” Ten wishfully spoke, before taking his backpack off and putting it onto the ground before him. Johnny simply watched as he opened the zipper, and took out a small black box. “You know how, when it all started, we said a final goodbye to the house?” Ten adressed both of them, to which they both nodded. “Well, I took some belongings as well. Nothing much, nothing that would hinder us, but, just some sentimental things I would’ve never been able to have a good conscience leaving.”

Johnny’s interest had piqued. “You did? Damn I didn’t even notice,” Johnny let out an airy chuckle.

“Babe you were nearly asleep you were so tired, god, you probably didn’t even remember my name in that state,” he laughed, before sliding the lid off of the black box. The sun glinted on the memorophillia that lay in the box.

Ten lifted a small pile of polaroids, and began to flick through them, passing them to his husband when he’d finished admiring each of them in turn. The memories brought tears to Ten’s eyes, which he insisted was just the wind from the altitude of the hill, but Johnny wasn’t a fool. As he wrapped Ten into his free arm, he smiled looking at the polaroid which depicted himself and Jeno in the pool. He could practically smell the barbeque that the neighbours were cooking a few doors down, and feel the heat from Jeno’s neon orange floaties whenever he touched them. The next polaroid was the infamous one of Johnny making one of the weirdest faces. Ten still couldn’t help but chuckle even now, with most people he knew dead, whilst Johnny just clicked his tongue in shame. The next polaroid was an image of their wedding night, Ten’s smile lighting up the wedding hall as he held the handle of a knife whilst it was embedded within their pastel blue wedding cake, Johnny smiling to the crowd with his hand raised in joy. The younger of the adults lovingly rubbed his finger over a polaroid of Johnny, asleep in a field, looking as though he was resting in the most comfortable bed in the world when it was really just some field they’d snook into.

Once Ten had passed the final polaroid to Johnny, he lifted out a single, very dead, rose petal, handling it with extreme care.

“God, you kept that?” Johnny teased.

“Of course,” Ten smiled. It seemed just like yesterday when Johnny had reappeared into Ten’s life on that rainy Thursday whilst he and his old roommate Jaehyun were having a coffee. The thought of Jaehyun, and his most likely state of death right now, haunted Ten briefly, before he continued to look through the box, smiling as he uncovered each new item.

For the first time since the beginning of the end of the world, this was the only time when the adults could truly say they felt happy. Sitting on top of this hill, the breeze gently brushing against their cheeks, Jeno playfully babbling to himself whilst he moved and arranged rocks on the forest floor and leaving the parents to go through past memories, was honestly the most peaceful experience they had had so far.

The peace was disturbed, however. From the bottom of the hill, where the leaf-littered floor had transformed into the tarmac of roads from the town, was a girl. She seemed to be holding something, presumably a weapon, and waving to the family.

“Jeno,” Johnny commandingly said upon noticing the girl. Jeno’s eyes shot open in fear, and ran to his appa, who promptly whisked him onto his back. Ten closed the black box, and gently placed it back into his backpack, before standing up next to Johnny.

The girl at the bottom of the hill wasn’t moving toward them, but was waving frantically.

Huh.

“I mean, if she wanted to shoot us, she’d of probably done it by now,” Ten reasoned beneath his breath. Johnny nodded in agreement, and they began their careful descent down the hill to the mysterious girl who was waving them down.

As they got closer to the girl, her youthfullness became apparent. She couldn’t of been much older than 18 at this point, and was wearing a tattered red varsity jacket. Her blonde hair was platinum, but black roots were showing at her scalp, indicating she hadn’t dyed her hair in a long time. Her facial features were strong, and looked like they could cut any surface they could come in contact with, yet her eyes were soft, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Ten wondered if she was wearing mascara, and if so, how the hell did she still have some, due to the beauty of her long black eyelashes.

The family descended to the bottom of the hill, and their feet touched the tarmac of the street beneath them. This part of the town had brownstone buildings, all of which were around 2 stories high, with deserted cars stranded on the sides and in the middle of the roads. Johnny and Ten kept their distance from the young girl, who stood with her hands behind her back, looking anxiously at the men.

They all sized each other up, before the silence got a bit too long.

“Uh, hello! I am Jung Jinsoul, and uh…” Her voice faultered off.

“Oh my god, you fucking idiot! How did you forget the simplest of lines!” Another female voice shouted from above, presumably from one of the rooftops. Ten looked up in confusion, whilst Johnny remained trained on the girl who called herself Jinsoul.

“Shut up!” Jinsoul turned around and shouted at the rooftop. Her blonde hair whipped back as she turned back to face the family. “Anyway, as I was saying, uh, I’m Jinsoul and I’m part of a group at the highschool in this town!” She smiled, proud of herself, hands on hips.

“Um… okay?” Johnny asked, confused. Jinsoul just looked at them and smiled.

“Oh for…” the same voice shouted from above. After a pregnant pause, there was the distant sound of falling, judging by the sound of trainers on concrete, followed by a grunt, before another teenage blonde girl, but with softer facial features, ran from behind a building.

“Anyway, sorry you had to speak to Jinsoul, no one should go through that optionally. We were wondering if you would like to visit our base? We’re really in need of members, ever since we lost our leader in a like… ‘seige’ a few weeks ago so…” The girl’s voice faultered. She was shorter than Jinsoul, yet the same red varsity jacket was worn by her. Her ash blonde hair was in a high ponytail, and she had a shiny stud in her ear. Ten noticed that there were many piercings in her ear, yet only her lobe was the one that was occupied.

Johnny and Ten shared a look, before agreeing. They really hadn’t any plans but to move northward, and perhaps a couple of sheltered nights sleep wouldn’t be the worst thing they could face. The walk to the highschool wasn’t too long, and on the way, the Seo family had the chance to introduce themselves properly, as well as the slightly shorter girl introducing herself as ‘Kim Lip’ (a nickname that was deemed ‘worthy’ in school, according to Jinsoul. This statement elicited several playful punches from the younger). After the fact that Ten had experience as a doctor passed in conversation, the girls’ urgency ramped up, and they practically ran to the highschool, the adults struggling to keep up.

After enterring the highschool’s gym, there were several others sitting on the bleachers, Johnny would guess around 4 others, whilst there were several people lying on stretchers on the otherside of the gym. Kim Lip and Jinsoul immeaditley took Ten and ran him over to one boy in particular, the man beginning work right away on his patient, the passion lit behind his eyes.

Johnny awkwardly shuffled inside with Jeno, making sure to close the door behind him, and walked towards a group of girls sat on the bleachers. He bowed in greeting, Jeno still on his back, to which the girls smiled at him and invited him to sit down.

“Wow, it’s been ages since we’ve seen another survivor!” One girl stated cheerfully. Her hair was jet black, similar to that of Doyoung’s (back when he was still alive, anyway), and was tied in a ponytail. She wore a red varsity jacket, as did the majority of the other inhabitants of the gym, and smiled knowingly. “I’m Kim Hyunjin, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Hello, I’m Johnny and this Jeno, my son,” Johnny smiled. As soon as Jeno gave the girls a small wave, a cacophany of ‘Aww’s filled the not-so-silent gymnasium, and they rushed forward to say hello to him in their high pitched voices.

One of the women however, stayed seated. Her hazel hair flowed beautifully past her shoulders and down her back, and the office shirt she was wearing had dried blood on it. Her dark green eyes watched the teenage girls drool over Jeno, and then turned to smile at Johnny.

“It’s nice to meet you Johnny. I’m Jo Haseul,” and then she began to point at the teenage girls that surrounded Jeno. “You’ve met Hyunjin,” she murmured, “that’s Jiwoo,” she pointed to one of the varsity-clad girls, except this one’s hair was coloured like honey and equipped with bangs that covered her forehead. “And the girl on the end is Olivia,” Haseul smiled as she pointed to the last of the trio, her black hair coming down to her shoulders. Once they had extracted themselves from talking with Jeno, they sat back down, the young boy returning to his Father’s side.

“Who did you come with?” Olivia asked, pointing to Ten, who was currently applying stitches to a blonde-haired boy, who was biting his hand in an attempt to muffle his screams.

“Oh that’s my husband, Ten,” Johnny nodded in his direction. “Once I had told uh,” the man struggled for a name, trying to remember what the girl with ash blonde haired was called.

“The dumb one or the scary one?” Jiwoo grinned.

“The scary one.”

“Kim Lip,” the 3 girls replied in unison, giggling. They all playfully slapped each other, and called out ‘Jinx!’ happilly.

“Yes, Kim Lip, once she learnt that Ten was a doctor, she practically snatched him out of our grasp,” Johnny joked.

“Oh my gosh, he’s a doctor? He’s way too pretty, he looks like he’d be under idol training,” Hyunjin stated, mouth ajar.

Johnny nodded in response, laughing slightly.

“That’s good,” Haseul spoke calmly, her tone much less excited than the other 3 girls. Haseul was clearly more matured than the others, her smile lines indicating of a history full of happy moments. Johnny wagered she was in her mid 30s by now. “Jinsoul’s brother fell ill due to a wound recently, and they’ve been trying all they can to help him get better. I’m sure Ten will find out what’s the matter in due time,” Haseul spoke softly.

General chatter began after that, Jeno falling alseep a couple minutes in. The skylights of the gymnasium had began to cast bright orange rays when Ten returned to Johnny, squeezing his shoulders lovingly. Kim Lip and Jinsoul followed shortly after, bouncing on their heels, happy with the result that Ten had given them with his treatment of Jinsoul’s brother.

 

~°•. 20 / 05 / 2025 : 11:59am .•°~

 

Jeno sat on the camp table, opposite Renjun. They were playing patty cake, their hands joyfully clapping together in time. Renjun was around 7 years old, according to what he had heard from Ten and Johnny’s conversation with Yuta and Sicheng, Renjun’s parents, which meant that he was 4 years older than Jeno. His honey coloured hair matched that of Yuta’s, and the family resemblence was clear even to the ’22 liner.

Jeno turned away for a second, looking for his bottle of water he’d placed next to him, after being told by his parents to keep drinking it. However, the sound of a thud on the ground could be heard, and in the time it had taken Jeno to reach for his water bottle, Renjun had fallen off the table and onto the hard ground of the campsite.

“Renjun?” Jeno cooed in curiosity, and peaked over the edge of the table.

No, this wasn’t an accidental fall. Renjun had been dragged off in an unsightly manner.

When Jeno looked down to the ground, he never would have expected to see some old, pale woman biting down onto his shoulder. How did she get into this camp? We were supposed to be safe here, Jeno thought to himself frantically. Tears flooded his eyes as Renjun whimpered in fear, before kicking the woman in the face, giving him enough time to jump up back onto his feet.

Renjun began to shout in a foreign language, tears flooding his face. Sicheng’s highlighted pink tips could be seen in the distance running toward them, alongside Taeil and Yuta. Before they had reached Renjun and Jeno on the campsite table, which lay in the centre of the camp, a scream could be heard from elsewhere among the sprawling tents that made up the sanctuary.

The loud bang of a gun made Jeno flinch in fear, as the old woman on the floor stopped moving for good, crimson staining the grass on which she lay. Sicheng began to sob uncontrollably when he took Renjun into his arms, looking at his son’s wound. Yuta looked angrily down at the woman he had just shot, and Taeil began to run off into the distance, toward the scream they had just heard. However, Jeno couldn’t look any longer, as he too was whisked up by a familiar force.

Ten.

Jeno, frozen in fear, clutched onto Ten’s neck, as his father began to run back to the car, backpack swinging in one hand whilst a pistol was gripped tightly in the other. Looking over Ten’s shoulder, with his legs wrapped around his father’s chest like a human knapsack, Jeno observed more and more of those beings flooding in from gaps in the walls, gunshots becoming a regular occurrence.

“Appa? Appa?” Jeno muttered as he bounced on Ten’s body, who was picking up the pace as he swerved past obstacles that got in his way, such as lawn chairs and tables. A growing worry was flooding Jeno (and Ten’s) bodies as the lack of Johnny’s presence was dawning on them.

“Ten! Ten!” Lucas shouted over the chaos that was emerging, screams of families becoming too overwhelming for the smaller boy. He limped hurridely over to the Thai man, who had stopped in his tracks, running over to Lucas. Ten began to speak in a tone that dripped with fear.

“Lucas, Lucas, please, listen to me,” he panted, slightly out of breath. Ten grabbed Jeno off of his chest, and passed him to Lucas like he was nothing more than a pillow. “Look after Jeno whilst I find Johnny, please,” he spoke too fast, too fast for Jeno to understand what was being said. Lucas nodded fearfully, and took Jeno into his arms and manouevered him around his body, so he was giving Jeno a piggyback.

Once Jeno noticed that his dad had began running back into the camp was when the black haired toddler began to thrash and scream against Lucas’ back.

“Appa! Appa!” he yelled, reaching forward for Ten’s body, who was growing further and further away as he ran back into the tented area. He began to sob heavily, screams joining those that were currently flooding in from the camp, as Jeno and Lucas’ sight of Ten was lost in the fleeing crowd. The 19 year old turned around on his heels, and began running towards the car once more.

Once he reached the parking lot, which was really just a flat piece of grass, surrounded on 3 sides by trees and the other by the camp, a plethora of cars were driving off in a frenzy. Once Lucas had found the group’s car, he remained next to it, watching as dust filled the air from overexcited accelerators.

Jeno’s crying grew heavier, to which Lucas took him off of his back and into his arms. The 19 year old was not equipped to care for a 3 year old, and so he held him at arms length, as though he could break at any given moment, like a treasured vase. Except this vase was wriggling and wailing, repeating the same words over and over again in desperation.

“It’s… it’s okay,” Lucas tried to comfort Jeno as he stood awkwardly next to the car. People continued to rush past him, all at varying speeds, as he held Jeno and waited for Johnny, Ten, Jungwoo and Doyoung. The last he had seen of Jungwoo was when some man threw his leg into his mouth, with Doyoung screaming at him to run, and that he could take care of it by himself. The thought of losing Jungwoo, a certainity now, flooded Lucas’ all of a sudden. He’d been bitten.

Jungwoo was going to die.

The events were rushing too fast for Lucas’ liking. His wandering mind was brought back to reality when he looked back towards the camp, and saw many shuffling figures emerging from its entrance.

But, what about his group? They must still be in there, holding up. They must be. They wouldn’t be giving up without a fight, and Lucas was in no way prepared to take care of a child. He could barely take care of himself, the pain in his leg from the car crash he suffered a month ago coming to the front of his mind.

The 19 year old had more pressing matters to attend to at the moment though. Such as the oncoming wave of undead people.

Lucas’ only weapon at this point was a hammer, one which he was using to repair the camp walls. He didn’t know if he’d be able to kill the oncoming undead, which had turned their attention from the camp and onto the teenager and child (most likely attracted to the screaming that Jeno was producing), but he had to at least try. In a last ditch effort, Lucas opened the door to the car, and practically threw Jeno in, before slamming the door shut. He leaned on it for both support and to stop Jeno from throwing it open. The wailing had subdued due to the barrier between them, but the young boy had began slamming on the car window instead.

Where the hell are they? Lucas thought to himself, moving into a battle stance, hammer at the ready, as one of the figures had limped too close for his liking. Swinging the hammer into the porcelain coloured man’s head, he fell to the floor. Blood spewed from his skull, staining Lucas’ plaid shirt, and coating his hammer in red. More and more began flooding the grassy expanse, which had become a lot more open due to the fleeing of the camp’s inhabitants taking the cars, causing Lucas to really need some extra support from the rest of his group.

A shout of “LUCAS!” was heard from the entrance to the campsite, which was on the other side of the parking area. Johnny, Ten, Doyoung and Jungwoo, all of which’s clothes were covered in slick crimson, began running towards the car. Johnny began picking off corpses with his gun as they got too close to the group, with Ten running for the car as fast as he could, all the time whilst Doyoung was supporting a limping and crying Jungwoo. Lucas used his hammer to strike another person, this time a woman wearing camping gear, who dropped to the floor. Gunshots were now heard less frequently, with more of the figures invading the camp emerging, with a voice yelling at Lucas to get in the car.

Scrambling inside the vehicle, as soon as the car door shut, a bloodied hand slammed on the window. Jeno let out a squeal, as the car door on the side opened, and Jungwoo fell in, followed by Doyoung. Johnny and Ten picked off some more of the beings, before deeming it safe to re-enter the automobile.

“Drive!” Ten practically screamed, way too loud for the inside of the car. The slamming of Johnny’s boot on the accelerator hurt Jeno’s eardrums, and the rev of the engine and propelling of the car threw everyone back with the speed at which Johnny was going. He turned the car to the right, making sure to avoid the entrance of the camp, and began to speed down the uneven trail as to which they had originally made their way. Once they had driven through the small woods, passing several crashed cars on the side of the trail (presumably from the rushed frenzy of the initial evacuation), and reached the main road, Johnny returned to a more manageable speed, putting everyone’s minds at ease for a minute.

Heavy breathing filled the car, raw emotions spilling out from everyone, whilst the scent of blood was thick in the air, threatening to choke them all.

 

~°•. ?? / 01 / 2026 : 00:2?am .•°~

 

Johnny set himself on the lawn chair that had been propped up on the roof of the highschool, setting the binoculars that Kim Lip had provided him on the floor next to his boot. The brisk air of the January (he assumed, anyway) night wasn’t unbearable, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant, Johnny regretting his choice of jacket when he could of easily chosen to wear his winter coat.

Next to Johnny, sat in another lawn chair, was Haseul. Her hazel hair danced slightly in the wind, the tips of it mixing in with the fur around the hood of the coat she was wearing.

She had the right idea, Johnny thought. The pair had been assigned to lookout over the base for the undead, or other unknown hostilities, during the first half of the night. They were on the vantage point of the roof, and would be here for several hours to come. It would probably get boring, especially as Johnny was sat with (what was essentially) a stranger, but if it meant Ten and Jeno getting to have a comfortable night, then by all means, Johnny would spend his entire life on the rooftop. The thought occurred to Johnny that he’d wanted Ten to spend the night with him on the rooftop, giving them some time to catch up with each other, be able to share their thoughts that they had to keep private due to the ever present Jeno. But Jinsoul immeaditley declined the idea when Johnny had brought it up earlier in the day, claiming that they had to keep their full attention on the streets below, and that Ten may prove a ‘distraction’.

Johnny knew exactly what Jinsoul was implying, as if they too were teenagers, and not a married couple of both 29 and 30 years old, who had a son, nontheless. They had bigger issues to worry about during the apocalypse than sex.

I mean, did Johnny miss it, hell yeah. And he knew for a fact that Ten did too. But right now survival was of top priority. Besides, they hadn’t had a single chance for privacy since before the apocalypse began, and whenever Jeno wasn’t in either of their sights, they’d be too busy worrying about his safety.

Johnny’s lingering thoughts were briskly interrupted by Haseul, who was sat a few feet away from him.

“Kind of beautiful, really,” Haseul whispered, barely audible over the wind, but at a volume that was loud enough to indicate Johnny should respond.

“What is?” The younger man asked, dumbfounded.

“This,” Haseul gestured with her hand at the town that lay before them, various red bricked buildings popping up unevenly throughout the settlement, the moonlight catching the metal of the billboards. Johnny looked at the scenery, and let out an appreciate hum. The eerie peacefulness of the whole town was both unsettling but also gorgeous.

It was a weird collaboration.

“So Johnny, what’s your story?” Haseul asked. Had Johnny of not been directly named, he'd of thought she was speaking to the night sky.

His shoulders tensed. The family had been through a lot in the past 6 months, and the thought of having to recount it brought a sense of dread to Johnny’s being. Like a deep secret he had yet to face.

“You don’t have to tell me. I just thought it’d pass the time.” Haseul cooly responded, noticing Johnny’s initial reluctance.

She had a point. This was going to be a long night either way, whether Johnny shared his story or not, so what was the harm of sharing?

“Where do you want me to begin?”

It didn’t take nearly as long as Johnny had thought to share his experience of the apocalypse so far. The initial outbreak took around half an hour to explain, in full detail, recalling the events of the medical camp, and then the search for Ten. Everything was pretty much the same, just a cycle of travelling in the car, until they met Doyoung, Jungwoo and Lucas beside the road. Johnny made sure to mention the fact that Lucas was limping, and Doyoung had menacingly pulled a gun on Johnny, before Jeno got out. Looking back on it, Jeno was the catalyst that brought the adults to realisation of their actions, his presence immeaditley defusing the atmosphere. Haseul pursed her lips and offered her apologies when Johnny got to Doyoung and Jungwoo’s death. But what Johnny stuttered on was his recount of Lucas’.

“Lucas was… special to me, which is weird, because we’d known each other for such a short amount of time. But the way he acted, throwing himself head first into action, reminded me of myself but younger, and I couldn’t help but get a soft spot for him. He was also really good with Jeno, so… I had no problems with him. He was so young, but so brave at the same time. If I was his age during this…” Johnny stopped talking.

“He sounded like a great kid.”

“He was.”

“What happened to him then?”

Johnny inhaled sharply.

“He shot himself.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. It all got to him, with the loss of his best friends. They were like a family, looking back on it. He asked to go to the toilet, but he was clearly so upset. The last thing we knew was the gunshot that sounded from the forest. I should of never let him go alone…” Johnny’s voice faultered.

The air was silent for a few seconds. There wasn’t much else to talk about after that really, all of it leading up to their journey northward, having to abandon their car a few weeks ago due to the lack of fuel. The story finished when Johnny recalled seeing Jinsoul at the foot of the hill.

“And what about you?” Johnny asked. Haseul let out a sigh. Had he struck a nerve? It was pretty hypocritical if he had, seeing as she’d just asked him to recall his entire story on a whim.

Johnny pretended not to notice Haseul’s hand slightly shake.

“I don’t… usually tell people my story. I say that my car broke down outside of this town, and that’s when I met the girls on a supply run. But… for you, Johnny… I’ll tell you the truth.”

Huh?

“I’d say my apocalypse began… when I came home on that first day. It was eerily quiet, my own heartbeat seemed like it was the only noise. Home is… was… never quiet, you see. Yeojin was always so loud.”

Oh god.

“You don’t have to say if you don’t want,” Johnny assured her, gently patting her knee.

The middle aged woman kept on with her story. “I walked into the kitchen and… there they were. They were as pale as paper and just… standing there. Looking at me. Blood was all around their mouths.” Haseul dabbed her eyes with her coat sleeve. Her face was pearly white, mirroring the colour of the moon that was shining above distantly. “It was heartbreaking. I didn’t even have a chance to save them, but… you know how the roads were in Busan, well, imagine that but in Seoul…”

Johnny nodded understandingly.

“You know, a part of me screams that, if I had just been a bit faster, I could of got to them in time. I don’t deserve to be here right now, Johnny. Yeojin does.”

“Haseul I’m so sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine what would happen to me if I lost Jeno. The fact you’re even still here is just outstanding, and is a true show of your strength as a person,” Johnny soothed. “I’m sure both your daughter and husband are-“

Haseul let out a laugh that cut Johnny off.

“My husband? He was a cheating sack of shit, dear. I could’ve cared less with him. What angers me is he wasn’t there for Yeojin.” Haseul clamped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry. That was out of order.”

Johnny couldn’t help but laugh slightly, to which Haseul joined in after, realising what she’d just said.

The night passed faster than expected.

 

~°•. 30 / 06 / 2024 : 10:29am .•°~

 

Ten’s eyelids felt like they were made of cast iron as they threatened to drop shut at any given moment. The gentle hum of the air conditioning in the stuffy office was luring Ten into the traps of sleep, each passing second making it harder to resist the temptation. Luckily for the Thai man, he was just about to have his hour long break, which was well deserved from the long all nighter he’d just worked. It’d been a long shift at the hospital, and it was times like this where all he wanted to do was go home and wrap himself in his bed in a cocoon with Johnny by his side.

A knock on the door drilled through Ten’s forehead. “I’m on my break!” Ten shouted, getting out of his seat and moving onto the plush couch that was in his office.

The door swung open. Pursing his lips in anger, Ten swung around to look at the intruder.

“I said I was on my break!” Ten shouted at the man standing in the doorway, the flourescent lighting from the corridor outside shining into the curtained office.

“Ten-ah, it’s me,” the man purred. Instantly, Ten’s eyes flew open, looking at his husband stood infront of him. Gult instantly surged through his body for shouting at his soulmate.

“Johnny?”

“Hey baby,” Johnny whispered, moving forward and taking the tired doctor into his arms. Johnny was comfortably warm, the kind of warm which Ten just wanted to snuggle into and lie there for weeks on end. The older man still smelled like smoke and dirty exhaust pipes from the mechanics he worked at. It was oddly comforting.

The couple stood in their embrace in a comfortable silence. Only the sounds of distant work occuring in the hospital could work.

“I want to go to sleep,” Ten sighed into Johnny’s chest.

“Then sleep,” he soothed back.

“I can’t, you came all this way across town to see me,” Ten whispered croakily, leaning further and further into Jonny’s strong chest.

With Ten still in his arms, he lead the younger to the couch, in which (with careful manouvering), managed to get himself and Ten on comfortably. The Thai man was laying on top of the American, but luckily he really didn’t weigh that much. As soon as Johnny’s back hit the couch, Ten had fallen asleep.

For the rest of the hour, Johnny couldn’t take his eyes away from the natural beauty that was his husband.

 

~°•. 14 / 08 / 2021 : 09:30am .•°~

 

Ten couldn’t take his eyes off of the glistening ring on his finger, as he and his new husband walked through the airport. Johnny was dressed in a cheesy tropical shirt, with orange, yellow and pink flower patterns adorning it. Whenever Ten looked at Johnny, his husband (the word still semed so foreign to use for Johnny), he cringed at his fashion sense, but found it cute and charming in the same way. Ten, on the other hand, was wearing a striped polo shirt and shorts, with some converse trainers.

“So, Mr Seo,” Johnny smirked, turning to Ten, who began giggling incessantly. The title that Ten had been waiting so long to hear. “Do you want to grab a starbucks whilst we wait?”

The younger smiled. “Of course. Our flight isn’t for an hour or so, right?”

Johnny nodded, taking Ten’s hand into his. “Hawaii is supposed to be really nice this time of year,”

“Ah, the weather won’t matter that much.” Ten grinned.

“Why not?”

“Because I’ll be with you~” Ten turned into a sing song voice, and looked up at Johnny with ridiculous puppy dog eyes. After the older had finished laughing, he turned to Ten with a serious face.

“I want a divorce.”

“Johnny STOP!” He laughed, hitting his chest slightly too hard, causing the pair to laugh as they walked through the airport hand in hand, luggage in their others.

It was going to be a good honeymoon.

 

~°•. ?? / 02 / 2028 : 06:??am .•°~

 

Ten reached his arms out in the bed, only to be met with the cold mattress beneath his fingertips. He moaned, aching from the constant hard labour Jaehyun has everyone do, wriggling around in bed for a while. It wasn’t long before the events of last night replayed in his head like a nasty movie that just wouldn’t turn off.

“Johnny-ah?” Ten called out quietely, not daring to move his head. What if Jaehyun was here? The Thai man could very easily recall Vivi’s warning, and quite frankly, it’d put him on edge. What if Jaehyun’s plan was already in motion?

What if Johnny had been taken?

No, even worse. What if Jeno had been taken?

“Appa?”

Well, that answered a part of Ten’s question at least.

After a moment, the sounds of tiny footsteps running from across the tiny room (where Jeno’s bed was) could be heard, followed by the sound of air escaping the sheets as Jeno launched himself onto Ten’s bed.

“Hey baby,” Ten comforted him, removing his arms from the bed and wrapping Jeno in them, giving him a tight squeeze. There was a time when this could have occurred regularly, back when the dead didn’t rule the Earth. But that was 4 years ago by now. Too much had changed, and the world wasn’t worthy of domestic scenes like this.

Ten removed himself from the bed and got himself changed, before getting Jeno into some warmer clothes and wrapping him tightly in his coat. Today, Ten was expected to help some of the other members of the ‘stronghold’ with their ailments, but he had his own plans. He had to warn Johnny of what was coming, of what Vivi had warned him of, before it was too late. The pair left the small cabin (it was more like a shed really, just with 2 beds and a mirror), and began to make the short walk to the warehouse to report for breakfast. Upon arrival, Jeno’s hand in Ten’s, it was clear there were less people here this morning. Odd, but not unheard of.

Perhaps they were just on a supply run and they’d encountered some trouble? It wouldn’t of been the first time, in the few months that they’d been residents under Jaehyun’s rule.

Jeno pointed to Yuta, who was currently sat, drinking from a bottle of water. The man greeted the running 5 year old with open arms, and gave him a hug, before bowing in greeting to Ten.

“Good morning,” Yuta said, smiling at the pair who had walked around the large table and sat opposite him. Jeno gave him a cute wave before passing his can of beans to Ten, who, after opening it and placing it before his son, turned to Yuta.

“Hey,” Ten said, smiling. “Have you seen Johnny this morning?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I was on lookout this morning. He was called by Jaehyun to go into one of the nearby towns to get some more supplies. Apparently it was urgent? They should be back soon, come to think of it,”

Ten’s insides seemed to be squeezed in tension. “W-What? Shouldn’t they of at least cleared that with me first? They make sure to tell all the relatives before someone leaves the camp,” he said factually. Yuta observed his fork, before turning back to Ten.

“You have a point. You weren’t even notified?”

“No.”

“That’s weird. Johnny said you were…”

All of a sudden, it clicked. Yuta had always been suspicious of Jaehyun, and after last night, Ten had no more reasons to trust him.

“You don’t think-“ Ten stuttered.

“We have to find him.”

“Find who, Appa?” Jeno asked all of a sudden. Ten and Yuta looked down with fearful eyes on the small boy, who had apparently been listening in on the whole conversation. “Is Appa in trouble?” he clutched onto Ten’s jacket’s sleeve.

Ten pursed his lips. He didn’t want to tell anyone about Jaehyun’s actions last night, really, but he didn’t want to lie to Jeno. Yuta threw him a pained look, before turning back to his food.

“Uh,” Ten paused.

“Appa?”

“Appa Johnny is… he’s in trouble Jeno, but don’t worry! Don’t worry baby,” Ten quickly took Jeno into his arms, expecting an upset reaction. “We’ll find him, it’ll be okay,” he soothed.

Jeno pulled away.

“Okay.”

“Huh?”

“Appa is strong! He’s fine.”

Ten looked at Jeno as he turned back to his food, sitting cross legged on the bench. He hadn’t really expected such a… mature reaction from his son. Whilst Ten was shitting bricks over the possibility of Johnny’s abduction, Jeno seemed to have gotten comfortable, a bit too comfortable one might say, with the strength and protection that his parents provided. But then again, he’d rather have a calm and collected Jeno than a screaming and crying Jeno. A Jeno that isn’t… attracting attention from unwanted eyes.

“He has a point,” Yuta motioned with his fork. “Johnny is really strong. No matter what is thrown his way, he’ll be able to overcome it.” He directed to the other adult.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t help him,” Ten said in rebuttal, opening his own can and sticking the fork in.

After the 3 of them had finished their meals, Jeno excused himself to go to the toilet. Yuta, once seeing Jeno’s figure disappear from the warehouse, immeaditley leaned forward towards Ten.

“What happened last night, Ten?”

“Hm?”

“Vivi told me Jaehyun tried something.”

Ten put his fork down. After taking a deep breath, he recalled the events in order, with Vivi asking him to go up to Jaehyun, who then confessed his love, followed by his attempt at getting into Ten’s pants, and then Vivi walking in and getting Ten out of there.

“Man, I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Yuta whispers, rubbing Ten’s arm. “Jaehyun’s a fucking prick.”

Ten nodded. “But that’s not the worst part, Yuta. On the way back, Vivi told me to get out as fast as I can. She said that Jaehyun has some sort of plan, and that the sooner we get out, the better.”

Yuta breathed in deeply. “I suspected such a thing. We really need to find Johnny. As soon as possible. In fact, we should leave right as we leave this warehouse.”

“What about Jeno? I’m not bringing him into whatever mess Johnny’s in right now,” Ten voiced his concerns. He had many ideas of what Jaehyun could of set up for Johnny, and none of which were particularly appealing for Ten to bring his only son into.

“Ah… we can keep him here, maybe? Jaemin is trusted and I’ve seen him today. We can take all of our stuff and leave, and then come back for Jeno. Jaemin will help sneak him out after it’s all done.”

“And what will we do after, Yuta? Where will we go?”

“We’ll make our own base. Why should we be the subject to these dumbass rules? Why can’t we make our own?” Yuta slammed his fist on the table, causing some people to turn his way, anger rising in the man’s body. “I think we’d do fine. There’s a port near here, couple miles east. I’ve seen it when on supply runs. We can stay there for a few days and then travel northwards.”

Ten pursed his lips, but at the end of the day, he was looking out for the protection of Johnny and Jeno, and Yuta’s plan was starting to grow in favour in Ten’s mind.

Ten paused before speaking again.

“And you’re 100% positive that you trust Jaemin?”

“I am 100% positive that I trust Jaemin.”

Even Ten didn’t know he trusted Yuta this much to take his word on such an important matter.

“Then alright. We’ll tell Jaemin and Jeno what’s happening, and then we’ll get our belongings and find Johnny.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

With a finalized idea in their minds, the 2 men excused themselves from the table, with Ten on his way to find his son, and Yuta on his way to find Jaemin.

 

~°•. 23 / 04 / 2025 : 07:25am .•°~

 

Johnny stood in his dark red underwear against the kitchen counter, his entire body on display whilst he stirred the milk into his coffee. His hair was still messy from the night before, strands poking out recklessly across his head. A smile formed on his face when Ten re-enterred the kitchen.

“I just said happy birthday to Jeno,” Ten said. His black hair was slicked back with gel, and he was wearing his white doctor’s coat, complete with a navy blue smart work outfit beneath it. There was a giant contrast between Johnny’s (mostly) nudity and Ten’s formality.

“Tennie,” Johnny whined, putting his mug down and taking his husband into a hug. Their bodies seemed like perfect fits for each other, the men’s warmth radiating off each other.

“What’s up babe?” Ten asked, muffling his words into Johnny’s bare chest.

“Be safe today,” he whispered. “That vir-“

“Yeah I will sweetie, I know that virus has gotten out of hand. I’m not expecting today to be particularly easy,” he sighed. Ten removed himself from the hug, and went to get his briefcase from it’s position against the table leg. Johnny followed him out of the kitchen and into the living room, where his husband was making last minute adjustments to his hair in the mirror.

“Jeno and I will head to the medical camp at around 12:30, I don’t wanna stress him out too much. It is the kid’s birthday after all,” Johnny leaned against the door frame, crossing his arms. Ten turned around and nodded instantly.

“I wish I could be here with you two for a bit today. When I’m done with work and you’re both done with vaccinations, maybe we can go out for dinner?”

“That sounds great,” Johnny let out a bright smile. Ten approached his husband slowly.

“I love you,” Ten said, wrapping his arms around Johnny’s neck and giving him a chaste kiss.

“I love you too.”

Little did either of them know it, but that would be the last time their lives ever resembled a sense of normality. The last fleeting image of the pre-apocalyptic world for Johnny would be Ten’s doctor coat dissapearing after his lithe body as he left the house for work that morning.

 

~°•. 23 / 05 / 2025 : 08:20pm .•°~

 

“Can we stop for a second please?”

Johnny turned to Lucas from the passenger’s seat of the car. Ten had his hands on the wheel, whilst Jeno was sleeping in Johnny’s lap. The 19 year old was on the backseat of the car by himself, anxiously fiddling with his thumbs. A sheen of sweat was covering his forehead.

“Is everything alright buddy?” Johnny tentatively asked.

“Y-Yeah! I just need the toilet, aha!” the young man responded, his voice shaking slightly. Both the adults had noticed the weird behaviour that Lucas was exhibiting, but had both decided not to question it.

Ten veered the car to the left slightly. They were on another long stretch of road, with a long hedge seperating the street from a series of farms, whilst on the other side, there was the begginings of a forest, with sparse trees decorating the area closest to the road, whilst the concentration of vegetation became more dense with the further away you got. Johnny gently rested Jeno on the vacant backseat, and the 3 men got out of the car.

“I’ll just uh, go over there…” Lucas stuttered. Ten raised an eyebrow at him, whilst Johnny had walked around the car by this time, wrapping an arm around Ten’s waist.

“Alright Lucas. If you see anything weird, shout for us,” Johnny reminded him.

He nodded. “O-Okay… I’ll… I’ll see you in a f-few minutes,”

“Lucas wait,” Ten said, grabbing his arm before he could walk off. “Is everything okay? I know it must be hard with Jungwoo and Doyoung not being here anymore, but if you need to speak to us, you can. Honestly, don’t be worried,” Ten reaffirmed, his fatherly instinct getting the better of him.

Lucas began to sob, to which Ten immeaditely took him into his arms, hugging the taller boy. The older man proceeded to rub his back comfortingly, whispering gentle words to him, in a bid to get him to calm down. Johnny watched with a sense of aprehension, like he should be helping Lucas, especially since he had grown an unusual fondness for the boy. But nontheless, Johnny felt particularly useless. Whenever Jeno was upset, it was always beyond Johnny as to how to make him feel better, whereas for Ten, cheering others up seemed to be a natural talent. Not that Johnny was void of emotion; he knew exactly how to cheer Ten up, and given time, he could definitley find a way to make Jeno smile. But no one did it quite like Ten.

But something was off. Lucas was still sobbing uncontrollably when he pulled out of Ten’s hug, wiping his tears with his sleeve.

“I’m… I’m still going to the toilet…”

“Okay. We can talk when you get back, right?”

He paused.

“O-Okay…”

The couple watched as Lucas dissapeared from their sight, enterring the dense forest. Johnny turned to Ten, leaning on the side of the car.

“I really hope he’s okay… it’s hard losing those you love.”

Ten pursed his lips and nodded.

“God knows how he’s coping-“

A loud gunshot rang out from the forest, causing Ten and Johnny to flinch. Ten got in the car, back into the drivers seat, ready to escape at the single sign of danger, whilst Johnny ran into the forest, looking for the source.

Maybe it was nothing? Maybe Lucas had just seen a dead person and had to kill it, and it was all okay?

But when Johnny ran into the clearing, with the gunshot still ringing in his ears, he knew it wasn’t okay. It’d never be okay.

Those were his thoughts as he observed Lucas’ dead body, blood pooling beneath his head, pistol in hand. The only thing Johnny noticed before running back to the car in a frenzy were the tear stains that decorated the 19 year olds sweatshirt.

 

~°•. ?? / 05 / 2026 : 08:4?pm .•°~

 

They’d finally tracked down the bandits to their base. It was an out of use service station next to the freeway. In fact, Ten could recall visiting this place when he was younger, when his family would go on trips in the country.

However, back then, the occupants were just employees and other travellers. Not bloodthirsty bandits.

When Ten, Johnny, Haseul, Chuu and Jinsoul had returned from their duties elsewhere in the school, they found the gymnasium looking completely ruined. Hyunjin and Olivia’s dead bodies were in the middle of the basketball court, bullets riddled through them, crimson staining their already red varsity jackets. Jisung, Kim Lip and, most importantly (in Ten and Johnny’s eyes), Jeno, were all missing.

It hadn’t taken long for the group of 5 to find them; they weren’t making their presence secretive. Clad in black leather jackets with studs on them, they made an effort of smashing every single glass window along the high street as they noisily clamboured down, before hopping on their motorbikes and skirting off down the entrance to the freeway. That was when the group had lost them.

What they hadn’t lost was the image of the 3 captive’s looks of desperation on their face as they were being hauled over men’s shoulders, with rope tied in their mouths.

Now, the group of 5 were sat atop a hill that overlooked the bandit’s camp. Ideally, they were planning on going in secretly and silently, extracting the other members of their group before leaving and never looking back. The whole idea was terrifying; this was the first time they were facing enemies that weren’t just shambling corpses. These were real people, who had thoughts and emotions just like them.

All had been forgotten when they entered the base, however. After a long and hard battle with numerous bandits, Johnny, Ten and Haseul had finally reached the ‘main office’ of the leader.

Judging from the letters scrawled across his black jacket, the adults guessed his name was Taeyong. He had bright pink hair, contrasting with the darkness of his outfit.

“Well, well, well. How nice of you all to join us!” He smiled, bowing in a mocking fashion. Several other men were lining the room, holding guns that were aimed at the survivors. They were outnumbered, and their chances of survival were seeming to be very limited at this point.

“Trust me, the pleasure is ours,” Haseul practically spat at the pink haired man.

“May I ask what brings you all here?” Taeyong replied with a sickeningly sweet voice.

“You took members of our group,” the middle aged woman said as she stood with her arms crossed, looking angrily at the bandits.

“Oh?”

“You heard me.”

“I did! But you’re wrong. We didn’t take anyone.”

“Stop playing dumb, Taeyong. You know exactly who you took.”

“Now that you mention it,” Taeyong giggled slightly. Taking a knife out of his belt, he slowly traced it over his own cheek, tilting his head to look Ten directly in the eyes (despite his efforts in cowering behind Johnny’s taller frame). “I think we did have some… new arrivals,”

His sinister laugh was replaced with the whimpering of Kim Lip, Jisung and Jeno as they were hauled into the room from the back door. Jeno’s frail face had evidence of a black eye; an image which nearly sent Johnny into a murderous rampage. Ten had to be held back by Haseul as he had attempted to run forward to grab his child.

“P-Please!” Ten screamed slightly. “Please don’t hurt them!”

“Oh, why would I do that?” Taeyong smiled, leaning down to look Ten in the eyes, as he had sauntered closer to the group of 3. “In our clan, we don’t hurt… our own members,”

The group of 3 paused. “Your members?”

“Yep. Our members. Well, actually, not quite yet! They need to have an initiation process first,” the pink haired man grinned satanically at Ten. Johnny’s body tensed immeaditley.

“Haechan.”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Now.”

The men all converged on the group of survivors, rendering them on the floor, gasping in pain due to the pistol whipping they had all received. It wasn’t long before rope was being tied around their hands, which had been wrestled behind their backs. Johnny, Ten and Haseul were unceremoniously dragged outside into the parking lot of the service station. Torches had been lit, brightening both Taeyong’s and the rest of his bandits (which had all gathered around the captives) evil looks of gratification that were plastered on their faces.

“As I was saying!” Taeyong clapped his hands. The burly men that surrounded the hostages in a circle all stood on edge, weapons at the ready. “We have an initiation, don’t we boys?”

“Yes!” They all yelled in unison. Ten flinched at the sudden loud noise; they were so used to being as quiet as possible, in an attempt to reduce the chances of being discovered by the undead.

“Our initiation is simple,” Taeyong turned around to Kim Lip, Jisung and Jeno now. All of a sudden, their hands were freed, and they were dragged up to their feet by some guards. “If you want to be one of us, then you have to do just one… simple… thing.”

Taeyong smirked at the, now freed, group of 3.

“You have to kill them.”

“What?” Jisung screamed. Instantly, he turned on his heels, and attempted to run away. Several burly men blocked his path, Jisung clawing at their chests in a feeble attempt to break free.

If Taeyong’s clap made Ten flinch, the following gunshot was even worse.

Jisung’s dead body crumped to the floor. Taeyong blew the smoke from his pistol in a theatric way, laughing slightly. “We don’t appreciate those being non disciplinary here!”

Jisung’s body was immeaditley dragged out of the circle by the aforementioned Haechan. Ten let out a choked sob, and Johnny let out a whimper. Haseul, on the other hand, kneeled with her eyes cast downward in a (weak) sign of defiance. This was the first time the group had ever experienced such foul actions being done to people by other ‘real’ people.

“Now that the drama is out the way, you! Miss! What’s your name?” Taeyong looked at Kim Lip. Her ashy blonde hair was messier than before, and her red bow that she’d found in a fabrics store in town was now missing.

“I’m… I’m called Kim Lip..” she whispered.

“What a nice name! Now you’re called Lip. You’re up first for initiation, sweetie!” Taeyong let the ‘t’ sound roll on his tongue. He held the gun out in his palm for Kim Lip to take. “You know what to do, right? You’re going to kill your lady friend,” Taeyong kicked Haseul’s back, to which she grunted in pain and fell to the floor on her stomach. “Got it?”

Kim Lip was shaking at this point; perhaps it was the cold air of the night, but it was most likely the nerves that were overtaking her. She wouldn’t shoot Haseul. She couldn’t. Not after everything she’d done for her.

“I can’t do this…” Kim Lip whispered.

“Huh?”

“I can’t do this!” she had shouted this time.

“Nonsense! You have to or else you’ll… die! Just like that blonde kid! Join in with me boys! Do it! Do it!” Taeyong yelled. The group around Kim Lip had first started quietely, but as the seconds passed, their screams of ‘Do it’ were getting louder and louder. Taeyong guided Kim’s hands to a shooting position, aimed at Haseul’s head, and whispered those same 2 words once again.

“Do it.”

“AGH!” Kim Lip screamed, pulling the trigger. Ten let out a shriek, and Johnny shut his eyes in horror, as the bullet peirced through Haseul’s skull. Crimson stained the floor which her body now lay on.

Lip had began crying.

“Welcome to the gang, Lip. Haechan, go clean her up. She’s one of us now.”

Ten and Johnny avoided her gaze. She was nothing to them anymore. She was no better than anyone else at this god foresaken camp. Kim Lip was gone; she was now a cold hearted killer. A murderer. Killing the undead was bad, but killing those that had fought so hard to make it so far. No, that was unforgiveable. Especially when the victim was such a noble woman like Haseul, who was like a mother to the group.

Jeno was now the only one standing in the torch light. Throughout the whole ordeal, he hadn’t moved a muscle. Once Taeyong had seen that Lip had been escorted out of the crowd, he knealt down to meet Jeno’s eyes.

“Hey lil guy,” Taeyong smiled. If Johnny and Ten weren’t restrained right now, they’d be ripping this pink haired twink to shreds for getting so close to their son.

“You know what you have to do, don’t you?”

Jeno let out a whimper, and nodded.

No. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.

Would he?

Taeyong, without a word said, held out his pistol for Jeno to take. The 4 year old grasped the pistol, and gasped when he saw how heavy it was. His dark brown eyes, Johnny’s eyes, looked at his parents in turn with a sign of sadness in it.

The pink haired villain had moved himself so he was now behind the pair of men who were kneeling on the floor, hands behind their back, rope in their mouths.

“Do it.”

Johnny and Ten closed their eyes, and looked down. Their own son couldn’t kill them. He wouldn’t. They’d raised him better than that. But… if this was what they had to endure to make sure Jeno survived…

Maybe they were okay with it.

The pair flinched at the following gunshot.

But once they’d opened their eyes, and looked at each other, both Ten and Johnny realised that the other remained unscathed.

It took a second to realise that Taeyong was lying dead behind them, with the familiar voices of Chuu and Jinsoul shouting from behind them.

Gunshots ensued, Johnny and Ten doing nothing but pressing into each other from their positions on the ground. Ten flinched as Jeno reached up to his parent’s mouth, and took the rope out. Jeno then moved onto Johnny, and did the same. He then put the gun down on the floor, and began to cry, moving himself inbetween his parent’s, kneeling down as well.

Had their hands not been tied, and people not dying everywhere around them in what seemed like the loudest battle in history of the apocalypse, Ten and Johnny would’ve taken Jeno into the biggest and tightest hug ever. Tears wracked all 3 of their bodies amongst the chaos that was occurring, gunshots sounding around the hugging family. A hard to swallow realisation was dawning on Ten and Johnny’s minds.

Jeno had saved their lives.

 

~°•. ?? / 02 / 2028 : ??:??am .•°~

 

“Ten?”

Upon hearing his name, Ten’s head whipped around to the familiar voice.

“Jonnhy-ah?”

The Thai man was currently sat against a tree, crying. He had dried blood all on his clothes, that was being illuminated from the rising sun that was peaking over the treetops. After the events of the previous night, with the murder of Jaehyun and the attack on the stronghold, he thought he’d never see his family again. Everyone was seperated throughout their group, after all; Yuta and Ten were trying to find Johnny, whilst Johnny was unaccounted for, with Jeno in Jaemin’s trust.

He scrambled to his feet, and ran forward to Johnny. The older man had looked better; he had a long knife injury running from his cheek down to his jaw, and his shirt had been ripped in a position which exposed a flash of his chest. When the American opened his arms, Ten fell into them, bringing both men to the floor. Ten immeaditley began to wet his husband’s shoulder with fresh tears, the worry of his family’s wellbeing taking over his body throughout the whole night. He had felt like a keg ready to explode, and seeing Johnny still alive was the flame that set his raw emotions alight.

“I thought you were dead,” Ten sobbed, clutching onto Johnny’s body for dear life.

“I’m not going down that easily,” he grinned, however, with the tight clutch he had around Ten’s body, he didn’t sound too convinced.

Ten pulled himself up and looked Johnny in the eyes.

“What about Jeno? Oh god, Johnny, is Jeno okay? What if he’s-“

“He’s fine, Tennie. Jaemin, Jeno and Yuta all got out in time. They’re at the docks right now.”

Ten’s body slumped with relief onto Johnny’s muscular one. They were okay. They were alright. Jeno was safe.

He was alive.

“We need to leave, babe. Jaehyun’s gone now but his men aren’t,” Johnny sighed, picking himself up, and taking Ten’s hands in his to assist him to his feet as well. “The faster we leave the docks, the better, alright?”

Johnny grasped onto Ten’s shoulders, giving him a sense of safety and security in this ever changing world. Ten weakly nodded. Johnny’s long fingers caressed Ten’s face, wiping away his tears, and the pair began to trek through the snow, Johnny’s free arm (the one that wasn’t occupied with holding the gun to protect them from potential predators) not leaving Ten’s waist once during the walk.

 

~°•. ?? / 03 / 2028 : 09:??am .•°~

 

Yuta, Johnny, Ten and Jeno had reached a small lodge that was located on the mountain side. They had been climbing the mountain for a while now, and were pleased to find some temporary refuge. It’s paint job on the wood used to construct it had faded by now, but that didn’t reduce its appeal to the survivors at all.

Johnny and Yuta made sure to check the lodge for any unwanted visitors, before letting Ten and Jeno inside. The decorations inside were quaint, and had gained thick layers of dust; as if no one had ever visited this place since the apocalypse broke out. The group of 4 all moved to the set of couches in the centre of the building, and when they collapsed onto the plush pillows, coughing fits overtook them due to the dust that had risen as a result of the movement.

“We can rest here for a while, get some sleep, before we keep on moving,” Johnny said resolutely, letting out a deep sigh.

“You go to sleep babe, Yuta and I can stay on lookout,” Ten soothed. He lifted Jeno under his armpits and set him on his father’s chest. Johnny gave him a warm smile, before turning into the sofa, wrapping his arms around an (already sleeping) Jeno.

Yuta and Ten sat in silence for a while, waiting until the other’s breathing had evened out, signalling that they were asleep.

“Ten, I forgot to mention,” Yuta whispered. He lifted his backpack from it’s position near the dusty coffee table, and unzipped it. After some rummaging, he lifted out something that was hidden to Ten’s vision.

“During that seige at Jaehyun’s base, I managed to save this for you. You must of forgot it when we were going to find Johnny. I didn’t know what it was, and I never wanted to open it because it’s not my business, but, I haven’t had a chance to return it to you. So here,”

Yuta passed the black box to Ten. The younger immeaditley gasped, and clamped his hands over his mouth in shock, tears filling his eyes.

“Oh shit I’m sorry, do you want me to like, throw it out?”

“No, Yuta, no,” Ten laughed slightly. “I thought I had lost that forever, oh my god… you’re amazing. Thank you so much,”

Ten took the black box out of Yuta’s hands with care, placing it on the coffee table. He lifted the lid off, and inside was the exact same memorophillia that Ten had saved since the start of this all.

“That’s quite the collection,” Yuta admired.

Ten smiled, taking the polaroids into his hands carefully. His heart was clutched with love whenever he looked down on the cheerful scenes.

And then it dawned on him.

This was why Ten managed to keep on going. There were times during this whole apocalypse where Ten wanted to take the easy way out: follow the likes of Lucas’ and Sicheng’s footsteps, take a bullet to the brain and escape from this unending nightmare. But whenever he looked back on these polaroids, seeing the gummy smile from Jeno in the pool, or the calm expression painted on Johnny’s face as he was asleep with earphones dangling in his ears in some field, that he remembered why he was still here. It was because of his family, and the pure love that he held for them. His whole driving force at this point was the need to keep his son and his husband safe, and nothing had been able to stop him yet. Sure, there had been times where they were very close to slipping from his grasp. Hell, take the whole Jaehyun ordeal for example. But Ten’s entire survival was thanks to Jeno and Johnny.

Without them, he’d be nothing.

And thanks to them, Ten will be able to continue making more memories in a post-apocalyptic world.

**Author's Note:**

> well !  
> this was my first fanfic so i hope i did okay uwu  
> there's lots of references made between the different scenes so , feel free to search for them !!
> 
> thanks for reading !!! <3


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